Tau the Dragon
by LyingCatSaysLying
Summary: Tau, a young fire bender in Omashu, works in the Omashu Power Facilities and as a ring fighter. Nothing is easy, though, and on top of struggling to stay on top of her rent, she'll have to manage all of the complications thrown her way, including new friends and adversaries. Set after Kuvira's fall. Focus on plot development and socio-economic and political issues in Omashu.
1. Chapter 1

The Boulder's Arena was almost perfectly quiet in the second preceding the start of the fight. Except for a few drunkards in the upper seating who hadn't stopped whooping and hollering for the last three bouts, the audience members leaned forward and held their breathes in anticipation for the whistle. Some clenched the fabric of their pants or skirts, hoping that their bets would turn a profit. Others flicked their eyes between the two fighters, eager for the onslaught of bending and blood. Little Boulder stood on the judge's platform, whistle puckered in between his lips. He waited for the tension in the small stadium to swell to the border between suspense and boredom

The Dragon curled her toes into the chalk at her starting line. _Here we go, _she thought. She carefully watched as the Rumbler puffed his chest out and took an offensive stance, ready to earth bend. The bets were against the Dragon: a small fire bender who—in her four bouts in the past week and a half, the first in her fighting career—had only won the last two. She didn't have the underdog appeal, either, because she refused to act as a boastful character to pump up the crowd; she hadn't spoken a single word in the ring. At least her fire festival mask, with its swirling blues, reds, and blacks, small horns, and a vicious smile punctured with fangs, gave her an air of mystery and kept her identity hidden. She saw the harassment some of the female fighters received and the pressure for their ever-shrinking outfits to be cut lower and tighter. She was here to fight and earn some extra coin, not to become a circus sideshow for the intoxicated men in the stands.

Little Boulder blew the whistle and the Dragon dug her toes deeper into the dust, feeling the ground under her feet. As a fire bender, her ability to sense the ground shifting as her opponents bended it was limited. The Rumble waited for her to strike, hoping to counter with a flying wall of rock and thrust her into the stands.

_Yeah, I'm not stupid enough to come charging at you._ She could hear the fans get a little restless, demanding some of the action they paid to see. The Rumbler saw that she wasn't going to make the first move. He relaxed and threw out one hand toward her, beckoning.

"Come on, little smoke puffer!" he taunted. "Or did you just enter the ring so you could admire my muscles better!" He flexed his large biceps and the crowd hooted, rooting for one of their most beloved fan favorites.

_ Idiot. _The Dragon slid one foot off of the line, stepping toward the center of ring, keeping both feet on the ground to better feel the vibrations in the dust. The Rumbler smiled as she took two more slow steps, his hands urging him to "knock that crazy fire bender through the ceiling."

The Dragon had watched three of the Rumbler's other fights over the past few weeks. He relied brute strength and his ability to take out his opponents with sheer bending force from afar.

_You'll maybe let me get to the center of the ring, _the Dragon thought. _The only reason you've let me get this close to you is to build up some tension in the stands._ She almost laughed as he stood by, allowing her to take another step. _You underestimate me, rock brain._

The hardest part about being a fire bender in a ring made of earth was that there was no way for her to counter-bend her opponents' attacks. She couldn't risk taking a direct hit because there was no way for her to soften the impact of the huge, muscle-driven attacks the other fighters threw her way. That was why she lost her first two fights; she hadn't adjusted quickly to the defensive, swift style of dodge-and-counter that non-earth benders needed to take in The Boulder's Arena.

The Dragon's toes brushed the chalk at the center circle of the ring, and the Rumbler clenched his hands into a fist as he took control of the ground. She stopped advancing and waited for her cue. Even the best earth benders couldn't muffle the tremors and slight shifts their bending send through the ground, and few of them even tried to.

The rock right underneath the Dragon shook imperceptibly, only noticed by her feet, and she leapt forward a fraction of a second before the Rumbler threw his hands down, creating a sizable pit underneath the small fire bender. One of her feet caught the wall of the pit six inches before the lip. _So close_. She leaned forward and received the ground with the back of her arm, rolling on her elbows, her shoulders, her back, and then up to her feet.

The Dragon balanced herself and punched out with one fist, sending a wide spray of fire at the Rumbler. She didn't intent for it to do any damage. _You better hope you can take a little heat_. The Rumbler, not realizing that the fire was weak and would sputter to smoke before it even reached him, flung up a defensive wall in front of him.

_You are making this too easy for me, _the Dragon thought. He obviously hadn't seen her last two bouts. She worked her legs double time to reach the wall before it was too late. She jumped and managed to grab the top of the rock, feeling her core clench and tighten as she swung herself up just as the large wall started to quiver again.

The Rumbler kicked out the wall with all his strength, hoping to blindly hit his opponent. He grinned when he didn't see the Dragon as the wall shot out. By the time he saw the flying blur above him, he couldn't move fast enough to block the attack.

The Dragon had misjudged the angle of her vault over the wall, and she hadn't flung herself over with enough force to reach his temple with the back of her heel. She didn't like the added risk of having to take down her opponent with multiple blows, but at least she knew that where she was confident with close combat fighting, the earth bender was slow in inexperienced in the art of short, quick blows.

She bended a little bit of fire around her foot and jabbed her heel into his throat. It was a dirty move, but she was at a disadvantage given that the whole ring was designed for earth bender fighting.

The Rumbler stumbled back, hand reaching up to his throat where the skin was already turning light pink. The Dragon crouched low and kicked out at the Rumbler's unbalanced lower legs. The large man fell down hard onto the ground. The Dragon thrust one foot against the side of his head, but it wasn't with enough force, and the Rumbler rolled away.

She blasted a round of fire at him, and he curled up to try to protect himself, still grasping at his throat. _Wow, add a little fire and you become quite the wimp._ There were four ways to win a bout. One: knock you opponent out of the ring. Not happening. Two: prove your superiority to the point where your opponent surrenders. To say that this never happened would be accurate. Three: knock your opponent unconscious. She usually went for this victory, but the Rumbler was tough, and while he was still on the ground, she'd prefer to go for the fourth. Four: keep your opponent on the ground and on the defensive for more than ten seconds. It was hard, and not the most glorified way to win a bout, but she didn't join the business for the fanfare and local celebrity status.

The Rumbler screamed in fright and tried to get up and away from the Dragon, but she threw down a stream of fire that send him back down into the dust. It felt wrong to fight this way, but the Dragon knew that it would take quite the blow to knock the Rumbler unconscious, and she didn't want to risk giving him any kind of head trauma when she was already half way to a victory.

"Five! Six! Seven!" Little Boulder counted, unconsciously adding a little extra time for the fan favorite. There were more boos than cheers coming from the audience, and most people were trying to encourage the Rumbler to stand up and fight. The fighter rolled onto his elbows, but the Dragon kicked forward a sweeping arc of fire and send him cowering, cradling his head in his arms.

"Eight! Nine!" The stadium leaned forward in their seats, many of them standing and shouting for their hero. The Dragon was sure that the radio announcer were exclaiming from the booth that it was do or die time for the fan favorite, assuring their faith in the ever-dominating Rumbler. The Dragon sent one last puff of mostly harmless flame at the earth bender to extinguish any thought he had about leaping up.

"Ten!" Little Boulder loudly announced the Dragon's victory, trying to pep it up a bit and get the crowd cheering for her. Very few people were happy with the results. The only celebrators were gamblers who had hoped to win big by betting against the odds.

A team of two muscled arena attendants rushed into the ring to carry the defeated earth bender to one of the healing rooms in the underground network of fighters' rooms below the stadium. The Rumbler would have no lasting injuries, but he hung his head in shame as he was dragged out of the audience's sight.

Little Boulder jumped down into the ring, and the Dragon let him grab her hand as was the custom. He lifted it high in victory, but most people saw the fire bender's win as a loss for the people of Omashu as a whole. Someone shouted at her to go back to the Fire Nation. _And to think that my father adored this place. _

The Dragon silently declined the opportunity to rile up support from the crowd with a victory speech. She walked down the tunnel that took her to the fighters' rooms. There were two changing and shower rooms—one for the men, another for the women—a large lounge area, a warm-up gym, and a series of small healing rooms, from one of which she could hear the grunts and cries of the Rumbler as healers worked the burns out of his skin.

She bypassed the locker rooms, which she never used, and sat down on one of the couches in the lounge, waiting for one of the stadium owner's messangers to fetch her so she could get paid. She wouldn't get an impressive amount of coin because she was still ranked in the lowest level of ring fighters and didn't even have enough of a reputation to get her fights listed on the ring programs or posters.

The only reason she got to fight someone with as much prestige as the Rumbler was because he had wanted to fight in a bottom ranked fight so he wouldn't have to spend any time recuperating before his huge fight against the Earth Quaker in a week. The Dragon had been given the choice whether or not to fight him because they were in different ranks. She agreed knowing that his tactics were designed to be used against other earth benders, and he would unfamiliar with fighting against a fire bender.

She was confident that the results from tonight would solder her name into the list of middle rank fighters. She was sure it looked like a one-sided victory, but had gotten lucky that her strategy played out without any major hitches. _And that, apparently, the Rumbler is afraid of fire._

She didn't talk to anyone else in the lounge. There were two other benders there, the two victors from the fights previous to hers: the earthbender she had faced in her first bout, who had pummeled her into the ground and was likely to rise into the middle rank soon, and a water bender she hadn't faced, but she had seen once and figured that he would drop out of the business soon enough. Judging form the bandages and swelling covering his body, he had just barely won his bout.

A messenger came to retrieve the water bender, and five minutes later, he returned to get the earthbender. The winner of the bout after the Dragon's entered the lounge after visiting a healing room to have a few minor scrapes patched up. The Dragon fidgeted with one of her sleeves. She was glad that this time around she wouldn't have to mend her costume. Though it was easy enough to patch it since it was all black, she had never picked up needlework, and it always took embarrassingly long to do anything with a needle and thread.

Her outfit valued form over function, and though she hadn't planned it, the unflattering cuts did a decent job of hiding her feminine frame. Her shirt was lose enough to hide her curves, but it's size meant that she had to roll the cuffs up to keep the fabric out of the way when she bended. The pants were a little to big as well, and a silver belt held them up. She had cut off the pants and tied them with twine just above her ankles. She was the only non-earth bender who didn't wear some kind of footwear, valuing the extra bit of awareness her bare skin gave her over the protection of leather wraps or power of steel-tipped boots.

Her mask was the only part of her costume she had splurged on. She had found it in a pawnshop in the slums of the city near where she lived. In any place with Fire Nation heritage, it would have been very expensive, but here in Omashu everything Fire Nation related was considered second rate.

Each of the eyes of the mask were surrounded by a stroke of black, blue surrounding that, and red covering the rest of the cheeks and forehead. The chin was blue, and fangs that jutted out of a large grin and the small horns were white. It was fireproof, so she could fire bend out of her mouth without any worries. It was her most prized possession, even if the rest of Omashu saw it as a relic of and old, abusive dictatorship that had terrorized their city two generations ago.

The messenger finally gestured for the Dragon to follow him to Ganshu's office. The stadium owner's office overlooked the ring, a large one-way glass window on one wall allowing him to watch the progression of the bouts while still isolated form the rough of the crowd.

Ganshu was an old earth bender and former ring fighter, but a dirty blow had put him out of commission for a few months to heal, during which time he had assisted the previous stadium owner and founder, the Boulder, because he was short on cash. He found his affinity for the behind the scenes battles that needed to be fought to keep the ring running—bribing officials to keep the illegal fighting ring from any kind of forced shut down, settling altercation and tension between the fighters, recruiting the next round of new blood, and handling the rest of the economic fares that the ring rumbling and his pocket well-lined.

Ganshu sat at his desk, leaning back into his flying bison leather chair and watching the current fight. It was a particularly nasty one: two rivals of equal strength trying to inflict as much damage as possible onto their opponent. They weren't fighting to win, they were fighting to take their opponent out of the game. Tau watched as one earth bender fired a large block at the other, hiding a small rock behind it that he bended into his opponent face when he dodged the initial attack.

The ring was sprayed with blood by the time the fight was over and both men, one just barely a winner, were rushed underground to the healers.

Little Boulder declared a quick break from the righting so the blood could be washed form the ring. The crowd cheered. The next fight was between an earth bender and a water bender, and though there was a moat of water around the ring and water benders were allowed to carry a satchel of water on them, the washing meant that the top layer of the ring would be muddy, and a mud fight was always a surefire way to get the crowd yelling and cheering.

"That was a bloody one," Ganshu mused. "I'll have to talk to those two about having a little civility in the ring." He didn't expect the Dragon to respond. He had never heart the up and coming fighter speak, even when the masked fire bender had attended the ring's monthly tryouts.

"Sit down," he gestured to the couch opposite his desk. The Dragon sat, hoping that the conversation would be quick. "You've proven yourself to be quiet the tactician after your first two fights. I must say, what you lack in size you certainly make up for in effective strategy. I'd say it's about time we settle you into the mid rank, see how you do against some of the better fighters."

The Dragon smiled under her mask, but the outline for one of the advertisement posters for the next month on his desk made her uneasy. The yearly tournament was quickly approaching, and though any fighter could voluntarily back out of it at anytime, it was a good way to make money if you could get a decent win-streak. Unfortunately, as a middle ranked fighter, though, her entry-level fights would now be much harder and exhausting.

"You know," Ganshu leaned forward, "I respect the whole silent assassin thing you have going on, and I really don't care what kind of a character you assume as long as you rile up the crowd in some way, but for your own sake, I suggest you try to woo the people at least a little. They certainly feel something for you, but that something is more irritation and despise than admiration and love.

"It's like those radio dramas they have on now," he continued. "You have the hero and his team, and then you have the villains. Both are necessary, but one is obviously used to get the audience angry so they like the good guys better. If it's a really good show, soon the listeners will be tuning in not because they want the heroes to succeed so much, but because they can't wait to hear all about the villain inevitably being torn to strips of pitiful flesh." There was no response from the fire bender.

"That's the route you're taking. You ranked 'Most Hated' in the last weekly poll—which is quiet something to attract so much attention in so few bouts—but everyone's rooting for you to lose in the long run. You'll never get any kind of sponsorship that way, that that's the real path to money in this industry. Try to loosen up a little bit. Give them a wave or a flare of fire at your introduction. I know it's not really your kind of thing, but you have the potential to join the upper rank."

The Dragon knew that the audience used her to vent out their regionalist anger, and she knew that she wasn't helping, but she didn't care about all that. The sponsorship she might have cared for if she didn't know that being a fire bender automatically made that a far-fetched fantasy.

The Dragon waited in silence as Ganshu watched her. The next fight was about to start. The stadium owner sighed and pulled out two envelopes from the desk. One was filled a little more than the other. Both the winner and loser of a bout were paid, but winning definitely had substantial benefits. He handed the larger one to the Dragon and the other the messenger to be brought to the Rumbler.

The Dragon bowed in thanks and exited the room. She left the arena from the fighters' exit, which would be surrounded by screaming fans right after the main events. She shrugged through the large metal door and onto the sidewalk. There were two fans already waiting there. They probably couldn't afford the tickets to the ring and were waiting so they could claim a good vantage point for when the title fighters exited the building with all their glory. She was surprised when one of them—a little blonde girl—yelped in excitement and ran toward her.

"Kiyi!" the other person, a similarly blonde young man, called. _If they're not siblings, I'm not of Fire Nation heritage_. Kiyi jumped at the Dragon and wrapped her arms around the fighter's waist.

"Sorry, the brother blurted out.

"It's okay," Tau grunted under the surprisingly firm pressure around her waist. She thankfully had managed to warp her voice lower than normal, making it impossible to tell the gender to which it belonged. Kiyi let out a squak, exhilarated that the Dragon had talked to her. Her brother pulled her off of the fighter.

"Sorry about that. My sister and I watch every one of your bouts, and it's kinda been her obsession to meet you." He scratched his head in embarrassment.

"It's not a problem. I didn't think I had any fans."

"You have the best fans!" the little girl screamed. She couldn't have been much older than six.

"I guess I do," the Dragon smiled under her mask. She saw the bracelet around the young man's wrist. It was undoubtedly done in Fire Nation style, but the gold didn't shine like it should, and there were several visible scratches. The siblings were like her, the remnants of a time when the people of the Fire Nation had invaded the great city. The girl gasped as if she had forgotten something and dropped her small bag, opening it in a hurry and pulling something out.

"I made this because you're so awesome! Will you sign it? Please?" The girl thrust a mask in front of the young fighter. It was made of cardboard, but it was colored with high quality paints. It's design and color almost completely matched that of the Dragon's own mask. "Fong won't like me wear it in the ring because he says it will upset the other people, but I wear it all the time at home!"

"This is beautiful." The Dragon admired the mask. She had never signed anything before as her fighting alias. She wrote big and with thick stokes, surprisingly satisfied with the result. Kiyi continued to ramble.

"My brother, his name is Fong, painted the mask. But I just it out and attached the teeth and horns. He's a portraitist for the wealthy people, but he's trying to sell stuff he likes to do of spirits and city scenes. I keep on telling him to paint you, but he says he needs more experience before he could do your fighting moves any justice." Fong blushed, and the Dragon couldn't help but laugh a bit. She handed Kiyi her mask, and the little girl hugged it close to her chest.

"Part of our house acts as his shop for the paintings he likes to do. It's just off of Bumi Plaza, and there's a little sign saying Fong's Paintings. Come by some time and he'll give you a discount," the blonde girl encouraged.

"Well, everything's going so cheap now, the discount wouldn't be necessary," Fong muttered. His sister ignored him and continued. She was a whirlwind of words.

"He's teaching me how to pain, but I wanna grow up to be a fighter like you! I don't want to learn about shading and perspective, I want to learn how to demolish my enemies!" She kicked forward into the alley, and a small puff of fire flew out from her foot. "Loot at that, Fong! That's the most fire I've ever made!"

"Here's what," the Dragon got down on one knee so she could be level with the girl, who leaned forward, eyes wide. "You listen to your brother and keep learning about painting, and if I do well in next month's tournament, I'll stop by and pick something up." It was getting late. The upper rank fights would begin soon.

"Yay!" Kiyi cheered. Her brother grabbed her hand to stop her from tacking the fighter again.

"Come on, Kiyi. It's getting late, and I have a session in the morning. And I'm sure the Dragon has things to do in the morning as well." He smiled at the fire bender and bowed slightly. "Thank you for spending some time talking to us."

"It was my pleasure." The Dragon bowed back. Kiyi complained about having to leave, but her brother promised her they would get lychee fruit if she behaved. Kiyi skipped down the alleyway, holding her brother's hand. The little girl looked over her shoulder before turning and heading toward one of the main roads, giving one last wave and smile to the Dragon before disappearing into the ambience of the city.

The Dragon sighed. It was late, and she started work at sunrise in the morning. Seeing that no one else was around, she took off her mask and slipped it inside her shirt. She turned and headed the opposite way down the alley, feeling the rough of the pavement under her bare feet.


	2. Chapter 2

Tau, known as the Dragon in the ring, walked up to her apartment building. It was tall, like most of the rest of Omashu. An earth bender city focused more on practicality than appeal, most of the city-funded building projects—including most of the buildings in the slums suitable for housing—were towering stories of metal and rock. Shops ran out of the lower level, and offices often occupied the second. The rest of the buildings had been placed under the care of landlord to rent out to the crowded population. To live outside of the city's empty moat was to subject oneself to endless crime, so most people preferred to live within the city walls, even in the dangerous slums, which meant that the city was constantly growing upward.

Tau's apartment was large enough, and if it weren't for the building's location in an unfavorable district, she would have never been able to afford anything half the size on her factory and fighting salary. She was still behind on rent, though, and she couldn't afford any water or heating. Not that she needed heading being a fire bender, but the lack of water meant that she had to shower and wash her clothes at the factory, which was blissfully required by law to provide those services to the employees who had time to use them.

After the end of the Hundred Year War, Omashu became a proud place. Since most of the city's residents had run away during the time the Fire Nation occupied it, there had been a relatively small group of dedicated people who remained to build it back up again. The spirit of working together never left the city, and unfortunately neither did the despise toward the fire benders. But still, to be part of Omashu was to be part of the Omashu family, a family that worked together for the better of the group, not the individual. At least, that's how it worked in theory. Omashu did become a progressive city, offering free health services and city run industries that were supposed to be free from individual corruption.

A good portion of the growing city still lived in poverty, and to travel from the outskirts to the beating heart of vitality in the center districts was just as easy as forcing a brick through a keyhole. There were too many people who had travelled to the city hoping for a new, prosperous life, especially after the fall of the Earth Queen, and jobs were scarce as the city's industry failed to expand quickly enough to accommodate the influx of bodies.

After the Earth Queen's death, Omashu managed to more or less keep order. The city leaders agreed to join Kuvira so that thousands of the city's poor could be recruited into her army and industries would be able to grow with favorable contracts to supply the metal bender's army with equipment. With Kuvira's defeat came a sharp economic drop, and thousands were thrown back into unemployment.

Ironically, the only reason Tau had a job besides ring fighting was because she was a fire bender who had tapped into her affinity to lightning at a young age. Lightning benders were in high demand in the power industry given that the social situation for fire benders in the city drove out all but the most desperate and stubborn, and her job was secure as long as she could perform.

There was a note tacked to the plaster door of her apartment. 'Come see me in the morning. –June. Tau signed. Her landlord was usually very generous, but her rent payments were consistently late. She couldn't afford to be kicked out of her apartment with the rapid approach of the cold part of the year.

Her apartment was scantily furnished. There was a cheap rug on the floor of every room, one couch, two pillows, and a stained blanket—provided by the landlord on account of one of the sections in the Helpful Housing Act. The apartment had two small bedrooms, one small living room, a near non-functional kitchen, and a cramped bathroom. She walked through the empty rooms to her bedroom, where she had dragged the couch in to act as a makeshift bed.

She had lived much more comfortably in the country on her father's small farm. Unfortunately, of all the cities she could have picked after her father's death and the rise of unrest after the Earth Queen's assassination, she just had to follow her father's dreams and make the long trek to Omashu. If only she had turned the wrong way down the street and wound up in Republic City.

She opened her closet, which consisted of old thrift shop clothing and three sets of her work uniform. She changed into an old pair of sleeping pants and a tank tip. She brushed of the dust off of her from the ring and fell back onto the couth. It was late, and she was working a sixteen-hour shift tomorrow for which she'd have to be up before the dawn's inception.

What would her father say if he saw where she had ended up without him? Would he see her as a worker doomed to a cycle of late bills and frugality, or would this be considered another training session for her, a lesson from which she'd have to learn? _He'd probably be more disappointed in his hometown. _

And what of her mother? Tau caught herself thinking more often about the mysterious woman since entering the city. She still had a letter somewhere from her father with the names of several members of her mother's family. She was tempted every once in a while to unseal the letter and see if she could find any of the people in the chaos of the city. It was an idea that she always pushed aside, though. Most people probably wouldn't welcome a fire bender into their family in Omashu, especially if the family member in question was the result of the heir to the family name running off with a fire bender.

Tau grunted. _I have got to stop thinking so much._ She urged herself to fall asleep and build up some kind of energy before the exhausting day in front of her. Her body relented after a few minutes. She dreamt of playing with her father back when she was so short that he looked as tall as the ceiling, back before she first fire bended, before he started her training sessions, before he started becoming sick.

Tau woke up and hour and a half before the sun. She rushed into her uniform, realizing she had forgotten to wake up earlier to meet her landlord. She groaned when she looked into the bathroom mirror and desperately ran her fingers through her hair. Factory rules required that all workers look presentable and clean upon their arrival. _Which is silly because we all look like shit by the time we leave._

But rules were rules, and she could still see some of the dirt from the ring clinging to her skin. Her black hair was only a few inches long, falling in a mess across her forehead and on the back of her head as it pleased. She picked at the visible dust and tried to get her hair to look somewhat organized before running down to the second floor, where her landlord lived. June opened the door after the third knock.

"It's not even five," the old woman grumbled, still in her nightgown, which showed way to much old, wrinkled skin for Tau to be comfortable. The woman groaned a little more about the time as she led Tau to her small office. Papers and files covered almost every surface. The old woman shuffled through a filing cabinet before taking out the folder for room 415. Tau interceded before the woman could give her any bad news.

"I know I'm late with rent, but I just got paid last night." Tau took the majority of her winnings from the previous night and held the bills out. June took it from her and counted it slowly, tallying up the bills in the her head and scribbling down the payment in the file.

"Take a seat," June gestured toward the only chair besides her own that wasn't covered in papers and logbooks. Tau did as she was told and fidgeted with the fabric of her pants.

"You know," the old woman continued, "I gave you discounted rent when you got here because I was hoping that you would be quick to bring in a boyfriend, but I see now that's not going to happen anytime soon." Tau could feel a little heat on her face. She was definitely not involved in the dating scene. The only scenes she participated in were all aimed at either making money or keeping her rested and fed enough to continue making money. She didn't have the energy for anything else anymore.

"Don't worry, though. I'm not going to raise your rates. I know you work long hours at the factory, and you whatever this second job is. There are always alternatives to that kind of life." Tau's blush deepened a little, and she wished she had inherited a little more of her mother's skin tone. She had made the mistake when she first started ring fighting of telling June she had just gotten paid on a Tuesday—which would never happen at the factory—and the old woman had assumed the worst of her young, female tenant's second job.

Tau couldn't help but shift embarrassingly under June's gaze. It wasn't quite disapproving, but it was sorrowful and regretful. Tau had thought about telling June that she was a ring fighter, but had decided against telling anyone lest any leaks in her isolated fighting live turn into a flood in her private life. It didn't stop Tau from feeling ashamed and guilty at the thought that June assumed she was prostituting herself for rent money. But maybe it would tug at her old heartstrings enough to keep her from throwing out her tenant.

"So," June hadn't expected Tau to defend herself, so she continued, "a pair of siblings came to me looking for housing. They're in a similar economic situation as you are, so I've signed them up to be your roommates." Tau's mouth dropped and almost hit her factory provided shoes. She'd rather be moved into a utility closet than have to deal with roommates.

"Roommates?" She gawked.

"Oh, don't freak out," June chastised her. "It'll bring down your rates, and maybe you'll be make to make some friends. They're about your age. This is non-negotiable, and they'll be moving in at noon. Now go, I'm not through getting my money's worth out of my crappy bed." She shooed Tau out of her office and closed the door in her face before she could refuse her new living situation. _Great, she probably just did that so I wouldn't have to work that 'second job.'_

Tau realized she would be late for her train soon if she didn't move quickly. She sprinted up the stairs to her room and back into her room. She took her mask from she had left it out—in plain view, that was going to have to stop if she was getting roommates—and shoved it in her closet under her crumbled fighting shirt.

She slid onto the train just as the doors were closing. Her face was red, and she was still panting when the conductor came by to check her pass. Her factory ID got her two free rides a day: one to work, and one back home. It was a forty-five minute train ride directly to the factory's gates.

The trains were always packed during shift changes. She was stuck standing and smelling armpits the whole time as the free room in the train car dwindled to nonexistence. _What I would give to be a few inches taller,_ she thought as another unwashed underarm bumped into her face as the train started to move before settling to hover a still torturous three inches from her nose.

The Omashu Power Facilities were outside of the city walls. The compound was a large series of gray buildings blocked off form the rest of the worst Omashu had to offer by a thick metal wall and barbed wire. Tau followed the crowd of workers through the gates as some of the night shift workers tricked out of the various departments and buildings. The only good thing about walking to the plant at the start of a shift was knowing that the exhausted faces of the previous shift's workers finally got to go home with your arrival.

Tau walked into the building marked with a lightning bolt. There were only a few dozen fire benders in the city who were able to bend lightning, and most of them worked at the power company. A good portion of Omahsu's power came from a sister plant a few dozen miles away that harness power from a river. The rest mostly have from earth and metal benders bending the cogs of generators in some of the other buildings in the compound. Neither method, though, was as direct nor as powerful as lighting bending. Lighting bending was also cheapest when output was compared to hourly wage.

Tau could feel her lack of breakfast when she entered the lightning bender's shared locker room. She quickly threw a few coins into a machine, and it spat out some cheap food. She scarfed it down, knowing she'd need the energy and some more to get through the shift.

She quickly pulled her protected, non-conductive vest on, wanting to earn a few minutes of quiet rest with her coworkers before the shift started. Pei was their manager today, and he was always strickt with his employees. Tau wished they could have a lightning bender oversee them, someone who knew that the breaks weren't nearly long enough for the bender to recover, who knew that their shifts were too long and wages too low, who knew that lightning bending at the rate expected of them was exhausting after the third hour, painful after the sixth, and nearly unbearable after the ninth.

It was always a feat not to collapse before the end of a sixteen-hour shift. The lightning benders would strike—as had proved successful a few times in other industries—but there were only a few dozen of them, and almost no one in the factory—or even the city—cared much about the small band of tiresome fire benders.

Tau nodded to her coworkers as she sat down, heavy vest pulling down on her shoulders and helmet in her hands. They stared in silence at the clock on the wall, milking every last minute. Tau looked around the group. There were sixteen workers including her. They would be in two different squads, one for each conducting room. Tau's seven squat mates for this shift was a powerful group. Most of them had over a year of experience, and Chelsea, the closet in age to her, was nine years older at twenty-seven.

When they had one minute left to report to their conducting rooms, they silently got up and filed out into the hall. The conducting room was large, with eight machines set up for the workers to bend lightning into.

The last shift had just been relieved. The lightning benders worked in a rotation of five shifts, and they were all forced by low wages—and the knowledge that they wouldn't be hired anywhere else—to sign up for double shifts. They worked in a rotation of five shifts. _Work two, rest three,_ Tau begrudgingly recited the cynical, self-appointed motto of the lightning bending crew. Three benders from the last shift were being dragged toward the infirmary by their tired coworkers. One young man had a burn running up his arm, an 'accident' undoubtedly caused by the unfair shift lengths and not carelessness as the factory would claim it to be.

The workers took their positions in front of their machine of choice, waiting for Pei to walk onto the balcony overlooking to workroom and signal for the official start of their shift. The nasty weasel was on time to the second. To say that Pei loved his job wouldn't properly express the extent to which he relished in the opportunities to yell at his inferiors. He pressed the intercom button so that not only would they have to hear his voice much louder than pleasant, but they would also have to brace their ears against how his commanding squeaks were distorted through the wires.

"In stance." The eight of them put on their helmets before taking a wide stance, readying their arms. "Start." Tau brought her hands up and held them there for a second, steadying herself and stretching slightly to waken up the muscles before shocking them awake with lightning. She took in a deep breathe and brought her arms down in front of her, bending one at the elbow and pointing two fingers on the other at the converting machine in front of her. Sparks danced on those two fingertips and she collected her focus and her energy. One jumped up her arm and landed on her rolled up sleeve, fizzing out harmlessly. She pulled her bent arm back sharply and rocked forward, sending a lightning bolt screaming into the machine.

Tau hated her job, but she loved her lightning. It came form a different part of her than her fire did. Her fire was from her head, bursting to life at the will of her emotions. Her lighting streaked up from her gut. It was instinctive, animalistic. Most lightning benders said that they could only bend lightning if they were at calm and at peace inside of themselves. Tau considered her lightning a product of the removal of human thoughts and emotions, which she guessed could be compared to having an inner peace. Her lightning never felt peaceful, and neither did she when she bent it. It felt consciousness, and so did she, like an entity driven by nature, by it's state of being, rather than thought.

Bending her lightning was like leaning over the edge of a canyon and surrendering herself to the force of the wind on her back. It was beautiful, but it was also terrifying, especially at first, because if you lost your balance you could fall to your death. You needed to let yourself become part of the ground under your feet and the air sweeping through your hair. You needed to become a part of things that do not think, yet are, to create something of the same kind as powerful as lightning.

Eight bolts of lightning few into the machines, and after a second of glorious illumination, the room dimmed. Tau took a deep breath and reset her stance. The workers bent at their own pace, some taking an extra second to rest when they breathed to try to stretch out their stamina. Tau just let her movements flow naturally, moving a little quicker than most of the other workers and holding the bolt of lightning a little longer. She could feel the energy from each bolt spread into her limbs, and all her senses were driven to the edge of overstimulation. The few times she had bended lightning while sparring with her father, she could have sworn she became faster and more observant, not only seeing, but also hearing and feeling her father's attacks with more clarity. Some lightning benders were off put by their lightning, fearing the difficult power that they could coax out of their bodies, but Tau loved it the more she bent it.

Every half-hour of bending earned the workers a ten-minute break. They took off their helmets and sat down on the benches in the back of the room. In a few hours they would be buying food from the machines to try to replace the energy that their bodies were rapidly losing. Everyone was sweating after the first hour, and the temperature in the room was climbing. Tau and most of the rest of the room stripped down to their gray factory tank tops under their protective vests.

During the third break, Tau noticed that Chelsea was noticeably more tired that she usually was. She hadn't taken off her vest during any of the breaks, and she was still in full uniform. As Tau walked over to her, she saw that despite the redness that comes with heavy exercising on her face, the parts of her skin that weren't flush were sickly pale.

"Hey, Chelsea, what's up?" she asked, trying to mask her concern and sound casual, taking a sig of water from a paper cup. Chelsea was holding her stomach under her vest. She had been quiet the whole shift, and the past two shifts as well, Tau realized. Chelsea was usually their cheerleader in the last hours in the converting room, always smiling and encouraging and doing her best to keep the exhaustion and burns from everyone's minds.

"I'm okay," her voice was weak. "Just a little tired." Tau eyed Ren, one of the other fire benders in the room and the unofficial grandfather of the workers even though he was only in his fifties. He caught her look and walked over, a two other concerned fire benders following him.

"No, really, I'm fine," Chelsea insisted, and the other workers, realized that something was going on, gathered around her. Many of the benders around her had worked with her for years, and they could all tell she was lying. Something was wrong; this wasn't just lack of sleep. Chelsea realized there was no putting off the truth from her figurative family, and she looked down at the ground in shame.

"I'm pregnant," she said bluntly, keeping her voice low and muted. Everyone's eyes fell to her stomach. They all knew Chelsea didn't have a boyfriend or husband, that she could barely support herself due to debt her older brother, now dead, had wracked up with one of the prominent local gangs.

"You should request shorter hours," one of the men suggested. "And take it easier on the output."

"I can't afford the pay cut." Even Tau, who had only joined the crew ten months ago, knew that the lightning benders were family. That no one else in the city would stand up for them and it was important that they support each other. Most of them had second jobs if they could find the employment, and many of them had to support children, spouses, or other relatives. When one worker collapsed, they all rushed to catch them.

And none of them could afford to live in good districts. Many of the workerks had been victims of some kind of crime above the typical mugging. No one said it, but they all knew how Chelsea's baby had been conceived.

"Why didn't you get rid of it?" and older woman asked.

"I wanted to, but," Chelsea had trouble getting the words out, "I just couldn't bring myself to. I know I should have, but I thought about how it's alive, and now it's too late, and…" She didn't need to finish. She was stuck with the baby.

"It'll be okay, we'll work something out." Ren put a hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her. Tau glanced at the clock. Pei would be back in three minutes to sharply order them back to work. They were running low on time to think up a plan. Chelsea couldn't continue at the rate she was going.

"Pei doesn't watch us much as long as the output stays up. While he's not here, I'll send a dual bolt of lightning into both of our converters every few seconds so you can take an extra rest," she offered. Tau was pushing her stamina as it was, but she hadn't had any problems lasting to the end of her shift in months.

"I'll do that, too, " Ren added. Three more lightning benders volunteered to help. They set up a cycle so that Chelsea only had to do a fraction of the work she had been doing before. She started to protest, but Ren interrupted her.

"You shouldn't be doing any kind of strenuous bending while pregnant, especially not with lightning. If you overwork yourself, it won't be good for the baby. You know just as well as the rest of how dangerous lightning can be. It's hard enough to protect yourself from it when you're tired, and now you also have someone else to protect as well. We're you family; let us help." Chelsea conceded as Pei walked in, yelling that they only had thirty seconds to get in stance. They took up a new formation so everyone who was helping Chelsea could easily fire into her converter.

By the end of the shift, everyone eas struggling to stay on their feet, especially those that had taken up part of Chelsea's work. Those who hadn't pitched in had only done so because they knew that they could barely make it through their shift on their own. They doted on those working overtime during the breaks, though, fetching water and food for them.

Tau's muscles changed from being energized by her lightning to being fried and burned. She switched which arm she was bending the lightning out of after every break, but she could see red splotches forming on her fingertips as the skin started to get seared as she got tired. More sparks escaped inside her body the harder it became to focus on the calm and animalistic place inside of her that produced the electrical blasts. She knew that after a few years there would be permanent damage. Ren's hands were always trembling from the nerve damage, and she had heard the stories of lightning benders who had suffered even worse damage after years in the plant.

Two of the men who had offered to help Chelsea couldn't last the whole shift, and Tau's numbing legs gave out from under her once Pei blew the whistle to end their shift. She didn't need to go to the infirmary like the two men, but she gladly let one of the larger workers carry her to the locker room. When she got there, he quickly jogged off to get her a bag of ice, which she held in her burnt fingers gingerly as she tried to cool the burning heat devouring her muscles.

The crew had a short meeting in the locker room after the double shift. No one else in the factory would stand up for them, so they needed to make a plan to advocate for Chelsea themselves. They debriefed the eight workers who had been in the other room and the few workers who had arrived early for the night shift. Chelsea would get a small biweekly payment while she was on maternity leave, but the amount would be even less than her normal pay.

They would continue to help Chelsea during her shifts until it became too much for her. Then they would go to the manager above Pei and see if they could advocate for a better pay during her maternity leave. Several of the workers who didn't have family to support, including Tau, offered up small portions of their salary to help with Chelsea's maternity leave. Despite Chelsea's objections, no one would let her take anything less that what was offered to her. She was in tears by the time her coworkers had dragging their feet to their respective jobs.

Tau went with Chelsea to the women's showers. It was heavenly to rinse the sweat off of her and finally feel somewhat clean. Chelsea wasn't very talkative, still embarrassed at the plethora of help offerings her coworkers had thrust upon her. The swell of her stomach was faint, but undeniably noticeable now that Tau was looking for it. It wasn't from the actual baby yet, but from some kind of pre-baby bump bloating. Tau once had the whole process explained to her, but she hadn't paid much attention at the time.

Tau loved spending time with Chelsea. The woman was the closest thing to a sister that she had. The crime that someone had inflicted up Chelsea had made Tau mad, though the raw emotion was pushed back and distant now that she had spent so long locking her emotions out of her thoughts as she had bent lightning into the converting machines.

The bruises on Chelsea's arms and legs opened up the box she had stored her anger in and amplified it to wrath. Chelsea deserved to be respected with all the work she did, and the marks on her skin brought up the image of the kind woman being held down against her will, probably on the way home from a shift it someone managed to get the upper hand on the young lightning bender. Tau had taken a few hard hits in the ring, and even then only the most vicious bruises lasted more than a week.

"Who did it?" Tau asked, surprised that the iciness in her voice. Chelsea was taken off balance by her tone as well. Tau looked at her sternly, demanding an answer. _No one does that and gets away with it._

"Don't," Chelsea sighed. "I know you've young, and you haven't even been here for a whole year yet, but Omashu isn't the place for heroes, especially those that are fire benders. I appreciate your gallantry, but I don't want you getting hurt. You're already doing so much to help me. Just leave this as is."

"Was it the only time?" Chelsea knew she wouldn't be able to fool the younger fire bender into believing her lie, so she stayed silent. The rage in Tau's head was steadily growing, and her train of thoughts quickly devolved into surges of wrath.

"Tell me who it was. Trust me, but I have a lot of experience fighting. I can hold my own." Tau tried to restrain herself, to not grab Chelsea and yell at her.

"Look, I appreciate it, but—"

"Do you know what my second job is?" It came out sharp and cruel sounding, but Tau couldn't stand the look her comrade had. It was too sad, too hopeless. "Do you?" she asked again. People never asked about second jobs because there was good chance that whatever a fire bender did to make money outside of the factory in a city that despised them was most likely illegal on some level.

"I'm a ring fighter." Chelsea's eyebrows jutted up. "I'm serious. And I trained a lot before coming to the city. I can take this guy, especially if he's not used to fighting a fire bender."

"I don't want you get involved in this. It wouldn't do anything."

"It could keep him from doing this to you again. Or to someone else. Can you be sure he's not going to go after Huiy? Or Gwen?" Tau asked, naming some of the other younger, female lightning benders. "Look, I have a fight in two nights. I'll get you a ticket to come watch it, see me in action. You can judge my ability to fight and then make your decision." Tau was sure it would still take some more convincing to get a name from Chelsea, but she could tell that at the mention of the other women she had wavered a bit.

Tau went back to trying to scrub the scent of plasma off of her. She turned in her dirty uniform for a clean one and walked with Chelsea to the train. Working a sixteen-hour shift always distorted her sense of time. The sun had been just barely rising when she had entered the factory, and by the time she left, it had already set. The tain was almost as packed as it had been on the morning ride, but Tau didn't find herself bombarded with nearly as many armpits.

She got off a few stops before Chelsea and started looking for a cheap place to get food. Even just walking sent dull pains throughout her muscles, and she wanted nothing more than collapse onto her couch, but she knew it would be worse when she woke up, and she'd need food with some actual nutrition—not the junk the factory used to milk their employees of more money—to recuperate.

She hobbled around like a penguin until her nose led her feet to a food stand selling hot Omashu wraps. She purchased one with extra of everything and bottle of water. The vendor cooked her food in front of her and handed her a large wrap threatening to burst. Just the smell of the grilled zucchini and steamed cabbage made the meal worth every cent. She bit in, and the vendor laughed when he saw her eyes grow wide with awe. It was by far the tastiest food she had found in Omashu that fit her budget.

Tau chatted with the vendor a bit while he served the next eager customer and she nearly inhaled her food. He told her that his grandmother had been a chef at a prestigious restaurant before it was destroyed during one of the Fire Nation's attacks. Bad luck through the years found him as a street vendor, but he said he was just happy to be serving good food. Tau couldn't help but feel guilty at her lineage for forcing such a good cook out of the restaurant business. The vendor, an old man who introduced himself as Gingee, told her where he would be on the different days of the week, and she promised to come by again.

The food listed her mood a lot, and she would have moved quickly and happily up the stairs to her apartment if her legs didn't already struggle to just get her up the steps. She eagerly looked forward to striping out of her uniform and collapsing onto her couch. She froze when she got to the door. She stared at it, confused for a while. She knew she had locked it on her way out in the morning, but it was slightly ajar, and she could her a faint noise coming from the apartment.

_Great, now I have burglars stealing what little shit I have to my name. _She tried to will herself into a state of alertness. She just hoped that it was one thief. If she got the jump on them, she could knock them out with one well-placed bolt of lightning. Then, just drag them down the stairs and leave them there at the mercy of any passersby. She wouldn't bother reporting it to the police, they were incompetent, and all she wanted to do was rest her legs. _Well, better to just get it over with._ She slowly opened the door just enough to slip into her home.


	3. Chapter 3

Tau carefully crept into the living room, looking for any sign of a burglar. The door to her room was wide open, and she could see someone sleeping on her couch under her blanket. She tiptoed to the side of the sleeping figure. _Idiot_. She took a deep breath and centered herself before thrusting the side of her hand against the back of the burglar's head. The figure twitched once and slumped deeper into her couch, unconscious. _One down._ She moved carefully toward the bathroom, where the noise was coming from.

The noise was… _running water?_ _That can't be right_. Tau put her hand on the doorknob and got ready to attack. She didn't have any water, so whatever was going on in there couldn't be good. Maybe some gang members broke in to have a quiet, private place to teach someone a lesson. That would explain the need for a flow of water.

Tau threw open the door and stepped into the bathroom, ready to punch out a ball of fire. She slipped on the wet tile and fell to the ground, nearly choking on the onslaught of hot steam. Someone screamed, and she looked up to see a naked Water Tribe woman about her age in the curtainless shower.

Yes, she definitely saw the young, naked woman in front of her.

The young woman threw out her hand, and a stream of water hit Tau in the chest, knocking her into the small hallway. The Water Tribe woman quickly shut off the water and grabbed a seal fur lined towel from the ruddy counter, desperately trying to cover herself. Tau stood up and turned away, averting her eyes. _Roommates. Forgot about that. Way to make a good first impression._

"Sorry… I thought you were burglars," Tau said lamely once the young woman—probably about her age—covered herself. The young woman closed her eyes and took a deep breath. _Must have been a long day for her, too._

"Just, close the door, please," she sighed. Tau jumped for the doorknob and closed the door. She peeked in on the still unconscious figure on her makeshift bed and winced. He would not be happy when he woke up.

It only took a minute for the water bender to dry and change into her clothes, and she was still mad when she emerged from the still steamy bathroom. "What the hell was that?" she demanded, marching up to the Tau and making the small fire bender stumble back a step. Whereas Tau was shorter than average, the water bender was impressively tall, and she towered over the fire bender.

"Um," Tau couldn't look her in the eye. "I kinda forgot that I was getting roommates today, and I had a long day at work, so when I came home to see the door was open, I thought that someone had broken in." She felt like she was rambling. She dared a quick glance at her new roommate and saw her rubbing the bridge of her nose with two fingers.

"Pukomo!" she called. When there was no response, she angrily marched into Tau's bedroom and shook the unconscious figure. He slowly groaned, and it took him a while to pull himself up into a sitting position, rubbing the back of his head in pain. The young woman had calmed down a bit, but not enough to keep from yelling at her brother.

"How could you not close the door? And I told you not to go to sleep." The Water Tribe boy—several years younger than his sister—groaned in response and shrugged his shoulders. His sister shook her head and turned back to Tau.

"I'm Nadia," she said, offering her hand. She was still visibly stressed, but Tau was no longer worried that she might fly off the handle and boil the blood in her veins.

"I'm Tau."

"And I'm Pukomo. Now that we all know each other, can I go back to sleep already?" Tau already didn't like him.

"Only if you get off my bed," she growled, seeing that he had drooled all over her pillow. The boy looked up at her and squinted, not feeling threatened by Tau's stature.

"Make me." Tau stepped toward him, but Nadia jumped in front of her.

"Sorry about him, he's can be a little difficult," she apologizes. She whipped around to face her brother. "Pukomo. Off the bed. Now." Her brother grumbled and pushed himself up off the bed with a grunt. He stormed out of the room, cursing when he accidently rammed his shoulder into the doorframe. Nadia looked exhausted.

"Sorry for getting mad at your earlier," the woman apologized. "It was a long day. It was a whole ordeal to get the heating and water turned on, and furniture shopping was brutal. This place is not what I expected."

"Welcome to the outer districts of Omashu. Don't worry, it's always a rough move here." Tau flinched a little, realizing her comment probably did more harm than good. "The food here can be pretty good, though." They stood in silence for a minute, Tau becoming uncomfortable.

"So, why did you come to Omashu, anyway? You don't look like a refugee." Tau eyed Nadia's traditional Water Tribe clothing. Everything she wore was some shade of blue, white, or brown.

"It's a long story," Nadia sighed.

"And by long story she means that I was about to be sent to prison and she didn't like the husband our parents had picked out for her," Pukomo added from the other room. Tau could almost see the steam whistling out of Nadia's ears.

"Hey, Omashu is a place to put your past behind you," Tau tried to calm down her water bending roommate. "It's getting late, we should all go to sleep." She hesitated for a second. "You can share the couch with me tonight if you want." Nadia nodded her head gratefully. They decided they'd go through the whole 'get to know the roommate' in the morning.

Tau was glad to finally fall into her couch, even if it took her a while to get used to the legs that brushed up against hers. She let Nadia have the pillow for the night, knowing that she'd wake up for breakfast and then go back to sleep.

Tau woke up to the sound of clanging dishes. She rolled off of the couch and dragged her feet to the kitchen, waddling slightly as her muscles worked to repair itself. Nadia was trying to get the hotplate to work while Pukomo gnawed on an apple, laughing as she adjusted the wire and the plug in vain. There was a full bag of groceries on the counter.

"It's broken," Tau explained, her voice as muddled as her thoughts, and she tried to rub her face into wakefulness. Her hair was unbrushed, and her face was paler than usual. There was a red mark across one of her cheeks from where she had slept with it against the rough fabric of the couch. She raised one hand and kneaded the side of her neck, trying to work out a sore kink.

Nadia sighed in exasperation. There was a pan on the counter next to a carton of a dozen eggs. Tau shuffled over to the pan and picked it up, noticing that its preciously crusted surface had been scrubbed clean. She held one hand two inches below the cast iron and glanced up to see both Nadia and Pukomo giving her a questioning look.

Tau rubbed her fingertips together, letting the heat slowly build and wake her up. She mustered enough focus, and a lick of flame sputtered from her palm, slowly growing until stabilizing as the pan warmed. She nodded to Nadia, who threw a chunk of butter into the pan and a few eggs. Tau watched as the water bender threw in a few spices and vegetables.

Tau couldn't remember the last time she had eaten fresh eggs. She rarely had the time or motivation to cook, and the only time she ever used the pan was to heat up leftover scraps or—when she had the luxury—water for tea.

"Hey, this is really good," Tau said through a mouthful of hot eggs as they sat down for breakfast.

"Yeah, just don't ask her to make anything more complicated that this. Ugh, that one time you tried to make sea urchin stew on your own," Pukomo fake retched. Tau could see the veins on Nadia's forehead threaten to pop through the skin. Nadia took a deep breath and ignored her brother, who grinned, having seen how much his comment ticked off his sister. Tau was fed up with the boy after being around him for a mere half hour. She couldn't imagine the torture of being related to him.

"So, do you have any recommendations on where I could get a job?" the tan woman asked.

"Can you heal?" There was a fairly easy equation to judge your chances of finding employment in Omashu. If you could metal bend, lightning bend, or heal, you were pretty much set. Otherwise, if you didn't have any connections or special talents, it was nearly impossible to make a decent living.

"Yeah."

"Try the hospitals, then. They're always looking for extra healers." Tau glanced out of the window. It was still fairly early, and she had nothing to do until the night shift except pick up an arena ticket for Chelsea. She hadn't slept very well; in her dream, the young woman had come into work one day beaten to the verge of death with a crying baby in her arms. Tau couldn't let her people be taken advantage of given their already unfavorable situation. The police, though they were incompetent anyway, never cared to investigate crimes against fire benders.

The fork in Tau's hand started to glow a dark red, and Pukomo jumped up form the table, shouting out. Tau looked down on the fork and let go of it. She hadn't realized that she had bended in her anger. She waited for the glow to disappear before picking it up again and delving it into her eggs again, ignoring her roommates and offering them no explanation.

"You should look for a job today, too, Pukomo. The money we have won't last forever." Nadia suggested, eyeing Tau with a little trepidation that maybe something she had said had angered the fire bender.

"Yeah, yeah," Pukomo shrugged like it would be no big deal. "I'll just find some boat stuff to do." Tau couldn't tell if he was serious or not.

"Omashu is landlocked," she said. "You won't find a single boat in the city."

"What!?" Pukomo threw his hands up, nearly knocking his plate onto the ground. "How does a city as large as Omashu not have any boats?"

"There's no need for any boats," Nadia said. "I told you that you should have learned healing when you had the chance."

"You can water bend?" Tau asked.

"Of course I can water bend," Pukomo rolled his eyes and pointed at a necklace around his neck. It was threated with bones, feathers, and a few tufts of fur. "Can't you see my warrior's necklace?"

"Well, you can try out some of the plumbing companies, then." The plumbing industry was pretty much saturated with water benders, but there was always a chance that someone had recently retired or been fired.

"I am not a plumber. I'm a dignified man. I'll find something else to do." Tau doubted he would be able to. _Good luck with unemployment._

Nadia left promptly after breakfast to find a job. Pukomo left a little later, a relaxed look on his face. Tau sighed, glad to have her apartment to herself again, and collapsed back onto her couch. _What am I going to do about them?_ She would have trouble keeping her second job a secret from them. She decided to leave that question for a later time as she relaxed into her faux bed.

She had plopped down onto the side that Nadia had slept on last night because that was where the pillow was. The old cushion smelled like cold rain, the kind that washed all of the pollution out of the air and pulled the last few impossibly thin layers of plasma stench from her hair. It reminded her of the mist that fell from the waterfall near her father's small farm. Tau breathed in the scent of clean freshness and let her thoughts turn to her memories of standing under the waterfall with her father as a kid. She didn't think about her last few years with him, when visiting the waterfall only meant a particularly grueling fire bending exercise that she especially hated.

Tau set out at six to get some food and Chelsea's ticket. Her shift started at ten, and she would work until two in the afternoon. Her fight tomorrow was scheduled to start at approximately nine-fifteen, and while she would usually be worried about not having enough resting time after work, she wasn't concerned about her opponent. He was a water bender who had been in the lower rank for a year before moving up to the middle rank. She had seen him fight, and he was timid, always waiting for his opponent to make the first move so he could react and adjust. _Such a typical water bender._

Tau was usually more of defensive fighter in the ring herself, but that was out of necessity only, breaking habits she had formed under her father's watchful eye. If her job didn't bank on her physical ability to lightning bend for prolonged amounts of time, she would take a more aggressive approach, but until she was used to fighting earth benders, she didn't want to take any unnecessary risks. Give her control of the tempo in the ring, though, and she had full confidence she could bombard her enemy until they collapsed, especially since her job at the factory had increased her stamina tenfold in the past months.

She took her time walking to the arena, going the long way to avoid some of the more dangerous pockets of alleyways. Tau could feel the tremors coming from the underground gym in the arena and the ring. The fighters were allowed to use the gym to train and the ring to spar. Fans could even by cheap tickets to watch their idols practice in the ring. Tau never had the time or the energy to train. Her job kept her from becoming slow or unfit, and she spend a few minutes before each bout going over her form.

On her way back to her apartment, she found the street vendor from the night before. She had completely missed the name on the side of the cart after work. _Omashu Star, I feel like I've seen that name before. _She ate and chatted with Gingee. He made her feel at ease, like for once an Omashu native wasn't judging her because of her heritage. While he skin had a little more color than most fire benders because of her mother, she had inherited most of her fathers traits, including his undoubtedly Fire Nation amber eyes. When Gingee asked her what her job was, she didn't hesitate to say that she worked in the lightning division of the Omashu Power Facilities.

She arrived at her apartment with two hours to get to work. Nadia and Pukomo had both returned while she was out, and they had pulled the beginnings of a new set of furniture and home décor into the empty apartment. Everything was a combination of browns, blues, and whites.

"You really don't have any kind of decorations?" Nadia asked as she set out a sealskin rug.

"Couldn't exactly afford any," Tau shrugged. She didn't see the worth in spending the money for those kinds of things. She stood around for a few minutes while Nadia set up a small foldable table with a tall candle in the center. A light blue cloth hung over the edge.

"I know a good painter if you're looking for looking for anything like that," Tau offered.

"Sure. I can't really figure out the road system, though, so you'll have to it to me."

"Yeah, no problem. Have you been to Bumi Plaza?"

"No, not yet."

"It's a fun place." The plaza was as close to the center of the city as people of the lower classes could get for shopping, food, or leisure without looking like dirt smudges on the clean sidewalks. It was one of the few places were the people of the lower and upper classes could be found together in a non-work environment.

Tau took her time getting ready for work. Nadia looked confused when she told her that she wouldn't be back until past afternoon the next day, but she didn't comment on it.

Tau got to the locker room forty minutes early. A handful of lightning benders were meeting with the general supervisor, who oversaw and regulated the whole building, before the shift started. Chelsea was already there. Tau handed the woman her ticket to the arena.

"Which one are you?" she asked, looking at the names of the fighters listed as the main events.

"I'm not in the upper rank yet. I just joined a few weeks ago," Tau explained. "You'll be able to tell which one's me, though."

Six of them, including Tau, Chelsea, and Ren met with the general supervisor. They were lucky enough that he wasn't in a meeting, and he was considerate enough to set aside his work for the moment to speak with them.

The supervisor, Henjin, was a man large in both stature and size. He usually did what he could to be fair, though, and he was well respected by both his superiors and those who worked underneath him. While there was usually little he could do, he was the only person who would occasionally advocate for the lightning benders. He always did it in a manner of compromises, though. "Small victories," he usually said when he met with any of them.

Ren did all the talking, as usual. The only reason the rest of them were there was to show the unity of the crew, Ren had told them. _And a little intimidation when needed, as well,_ Tau thought. She believed that in a different situation, he would make an admiral general or diplomat.

Henjin listened to Ren, nodding his head in agreement at most of his points. Chelsea was a valued lighting bender who had worked in the division for many years, and she had a consistent output; if she were to be injured because of any complications, the factory would be losing a very important lighting bender. And those were hard to come across in Omashu. It is hard enough as is to support a family. To do it as a young, single mother would be even harder.

When Ren finished appealing to both Henjin's moral and business-orientated sides, the large man thumbed his thumbs against his desk for a few seconds, thinking.

"I agree with you, Ren, as usual." Tau stiffened a little. This was usually what Henjin said when there wasn't much he could do for them. "But there isn't much I can do. Maternity leave rules are the same throughout all the divisions of the factory." _Yup, this is going to be fun._

"But earth bending women get a bonus when they go on maternity leave. Our women don't, and we produce more energy per worker. And our pay is less. And our injury compensation. As is our yearly bonuses." Ren rattled off some of the ways the lightning benders weren't treated fairly in the factory.

"Well, you know how hard it is to get the attention of the higher ups, especially of anything that involves things that would be a pain to change with the paper work," Hajin said, dancing around the real reason they were paid less: because the factory could get away with it.

"I have been trying," Hajin assured the group. "When that young man was severely burned last month, I got his paid leave extended so he would have enough time to properly heal." _Yeah, that was only because we had demanded shorter shifts and greater injury compensation because you work us too hard. _Tau was becoming increasingly agitated. She tapped Ren on the hip, below Hajin's line of sight, silently asking if it was time for Plan B.

Ren slightly shook his head, ever the careful diplomat. The supervisor hadn't yet proposed his typical compromise, and hopefully it would be decent. The man had glanced at Chelsea often, and she had made a point of rubbing her stomach.

"I know what I can do," Hajin's eyes suddenly light up. Tau could never tell if his sudden epiphanies were fake or not. _Your job is to organize and manage a few hundred workers; you should be able to recite all of the payment policies, limitations, and loopholes after downing half a gallon and cactus juice and jumping with one foot on a spinning Grenah ride. _

"The New Family policy, which hands out a few bonuses to workers who have a new child introduced to their family, doesn't specify when the payments start. They usually start at birth, but I could start your payments early because your child is technically alive," he said to Chelsea. "You'll get a few extra payments in there because it goes until the baby reaches one year of age." Hajin was practically glowing. Chelsea looked relieved, but Ren didn't show any signs of celebration.

"How often are the bonuses, and how much are they," he asked. He was unfamiliar with the policy, and wondered whether it was new or if Hajin had just never enforced it before. Hajin faltered a little at his question. _Not often, and not much_, Tau guessed.

"Um, every three months, Chelsea will receive an extra twenty person of whatever she earns during that two week block." Ren frowned. It helped, sure, but the extra cash would be negligent during Chelsea's maternity leave, and it cost a lot more than that to support a child, especially during the first year.

Tau tapped Ren's hip again. The other lightning benders were also watching him, waiting for his cue. He dug his fingers into his short, graying beard, scratching at his chin. Plan B was a go.

They needed to be indirect enough to not get in any trouble with Hajin, but firm enough to make the man uncomfortable. They shifted a little, spreading out ever so slightly to look like a larger group. Those who had fallen into a relaxed stance during the conversation stood up straight. They all looked sternly at the general supervisor, who noticed the change in their attitude.

"I don't' think you know how hard it is to work such long shifts. A lot of people have been complaining, and it's been a while since you've actually stopped by to visit us at the end of a shift. We're a family, and Chelsea's wellbeing is very important to all of us," Ren warned.

"You know how hard it is for me to actually change something as big as this. The people above me are very difficult to deal with," Hajin again tried to pin the problem on his superiors.

"I don't know how hard that is, but it shouldn't be hard to convince them that a group producing more and cheaper energy should at least be treated as equals to the earth and metal benders. They get to go home with the energy to spend time with their families and the money they need to properly support them." Hajin sighed and looked down at his desk.

"Things are a lot more complicated than you think. Things are a lot more—"

"This is discrimination. We could take legal action." Hajing tried not to laugh, he really did. When a slight smirk appeared on his face and an almost silent chuckle caught in his throat, tau was ready to punch him. She took a step forward so she loomed over the desk, and the two men behind her followed her lead. Ren grabbed her arm, and Hajin raised his eyebrows, teasing the young fire bender, an amused look on his face. He was done trying to comfort the lightning benders.

Ren didn't say anything to Tau. He just squeezed her arm. She breathed out heavily, unconsciously jetting out a puff of smoke from her nostrils. She could feel her fingertips warming up in anticipation. Her mouth tasted like smoke. Her whole body was urging her to jump into action, to thrust a fiery palm right into the center of Hajin's fat face. Ren squeezed her arm a little more urgently.

"Let's go," he whispered. She let him pull her away from the general supervisor. They were almost at the door when Hajin spoke.

"You know, Ren, I've decided for now to ignor the fact that some of your people have been picking up the slack for others." The threat made Ren's hand—still griping Tau's arm—tighten. There were vastly unfavorable punishments for workers who didn't hold their own during their shift and received help from others. Hajin's message was clear: this was the last he was going to hear of this topic.

Ren pulled her into the hallway, and the rest of the lightning benders followed them. Ren let go of Tau and punched the wall, leaving a large scorch mark on the white paint. He didn't say anything, and neither did anyone else. They all waited for him to announce their plan of action. Usually, after these meetings he would tell them that they had taken a small step closer toward equality, that they would be able to chip at the block a little more next time. He was silent though as he walked back to the locker room and got ready for the shift.

It was almost time to head over to the converting rooms, and the other workers were all lounging in the locker room. One of the men informed the others about the result of their meeting, including Hajin's threat, and an older woman stood up and kicked over a wastebasket in rage. Tau knew that she had been in a similar situation when she was younger, and that it had been particularly rough for her after she gave birth to twins.

Tau expected to have a hard time lightning bending with her anger, but her first bolt of lightning was stronger than normal. She had pushed away the emotions in her head, but her rage still lingered in her spine. It messed a little with her lighting, though, making it a little harder to control and aim. She mulled over it a little as she bended more lightning. It was like when she had bended while scared. She could produce the lighting as long as she could keep her fear in her body and not her mind, but it changed the properties of the bolts slightly.

Tau and a handful of other benders continued to help Chelsea keep her output up. Tau noticed that many of her coworkers appeared to tire out later than usual. _I guess anger helps keep our stamina up._ The shift was still hard to get through.

"You're really going to fight after this?" Chelsea asked in the shower.

"Yeah, I have a few hours to rest." Tau hoped she sounded confident instead of desperate for the cash. Chelsea agreed to go to the fight, and Tau headed back to her apartment.

Both Nadia and Pukomo were out job hunting. Tau found a plate of assorted vegetables and two slices of bread on the table with a note. _Figured you might be hungry. Dig in!_ it said. Tau doubted that Pukomo was physically possible of something so thoughtful. She silently thanked Nadia, asking the spirits to help her get a good job.

Her pillow smelled like rain, and she relished the scent as she settled down for a lengthy nap. It was a scent she could get used to smelling all the time.


	4. Chapter 4

"Hey, do you wanna warm up with me?" Tau looked up at the woman standing above her through her mask. She was stretching in the corner of the underground gym, minding her own business as usual, when the earth bender approached her. Tau said nothing and returned to her stretch, pushing the palm of her hand well past her toes from her sitting position. The earth bender sat down next to her.

"I know that even if you are mute, you have the intelligence to at least nod your head." Tau was pretty sure that her curt silence had been a sufficient 'no.' The earth bender looked like the typical member of Omashu's lower class: dark skin, brown eyes, and mousy hair. Tau noticed that while her body was well built, she still managed to maintain a feminine softness about her features. Her outfit was way too skimpy to be comfortable, though.

_And that is why I don't' talk to anyone here: I'll end up with half the audience rooting for my opponent to rip my outfit down the front if they find out I'm female. _She had seen it happen. The lack of dignity in the ring and the stands never ceased to disgust her.

The woman had the last of the lower rank bouts, and Tau had the first middle rank bout of the night. That was all she knew about her. She knew her stage name, but she had never seen her fight.

"A lot of people are really impressed by how quickly you've moved up to the middle rank." Tau continued ignoring her. "You have your own kind of cult following among some of the lower rank fighters; there's this whole group of us hoping you'll just cream everyone in your path all the way up to the upper rank." Tau doubted this group could be very large. _And if it does exist, that's probably the only reason you're talking to me, so you can go back and tell them all about it._

"You've kinda become this icon of female power, this symbol that we can be just as successful as the men in the ring. No woman's ever moved that quickly to the middle rank." Tau looked up from her stretch. She almost threw her hand over the woman's mouth, and the earth bender could see the glint of fear in Tau's eyes.

"Relax," she assured her. "Most of the guys can't tell. We women just happen to be more perceptive. And we won't tell anyone. We have to stick together, and if this whole mysterious masked fighting this is how you jam, we respect that." the woman looked at Tau as if this would finally prompt her to speak.

"My name is Quinn," she tried again after a moment of silence as Tau switched stretches. She looked only a few years older than Tau.

"Do you want to spar a little real quick?" She hesitated a little, losing confidence and unsure of whether or not her company was being just barely tolerated. "You're never here during the day, so I figured that you might like a partner to warm up a bit with, especially because it's your first official bout in the middle rank, and you're fighting a water bender."

Tau never understood why people assumed water had an advantage over fire. Sure, if you took a bucket of water and threw it on a campfire, the fire would go out, but most people didn't understand the fundamental difference between fire and the other elements. Fire was energy, and a bender could create as much fire as their stamina would allow them. And because fire isn't tangible, you can't just block it or push it away. You couldn't tough fire, but it could still touch you.

The woman looked at Tau, too hopeful. Tau sighed. _Screw it._ She walked to an open area in the gym and took a fighting stance. Quinn almost jumped in joy before joining her.

They started off slow. Quinn shot light disks of earth at Tau, who dodged them and set sparse puffs of fire back. Even if one of the disks hit Tau, it would only leave a bruise, and the fire she sent Quinn's way wasn't dense enough to burn her. They steadily picked up the pace, moving faster and tightening their aim, daring to challenge their partner every once in a while with a particularly hard to dodge or block attack. Tau realized that something felt off about her fire. She wasn't sure if it was a trick of the light, but her flames flashed blue just as she bended them out from her hands and feet before cooling down to red. _I'll have to ask Ren if that's normal._

They only sparred for ten minutes, but of the dozen or so fighters in the gym, half of them were watching the sparring match by the time it ended. There weren't watching because it was something spectacular to see, it was just that none of them had seen the Dragon do anything with anyone else. Neither tau nor Quinn had hit the other, but there had been a few close calls on either side—mostly though because on one side, Tau's attacks were much faster than Quinn was used to, and on the side, Tau found herself occasionally distracted by the color of her fire. _What is going on with it? _Tau silently dropped her fighting stance and power to Quinn, signaling the end of their sparring time.

Quinn skipped up to Tau, face flushed from both the exercise and the heat from the fire. "See, that was fun," she pointed out. Tau wouldn't have called it fun, but her limbs did feel loose and ready to fight. She walked over to the fireproof patch on the wall. She took a sturdy stance in front of it while Quinn continued on about how they should do that every night that they both happened to be fighting. Tau took a deep breath and bended a fierce blast toward the wall. Her fire was definitely a light blue for half a second.

"Whoa, I didn't know that fire benders could bend blue fire. Does that mean that it's hotter than normal?" Tau knew it was possible, but she had only heard of one other fire bender in the last hundred years who could do it.

"Is that normal? Does this mean that you're advancing into some higher level of fire bending?" Tau didn't know. Her fight would start in about fifteen minutes. Quinn's would start in about ten, though she could be called in to fight any minute now if the bouts before her went by quickly.

"Will you watch my bout? I'll watch yours." Quinn asked. There was a small viewing balcony that was reserved for fighters. Tau shrugged, and Quinn hugged her in joy, taking the non-definitive answer as a yes. Tau rolled her shoulders in, cringing away a little bit from the overly friendly gesture. Tau did watch Quinn's bout. She wasn't a bad fighter, and she managed to defeat her opponent without taking too many hits. Tau guessed though that she'd stay in the lower rank for a while yet.

As Little Boulder announced Quinn as the winner, Tau considered quickly running back underground to get to her entrance tunnel to the ring, but decided that she didn't have quite enough time. _Well, Ganshu did tell me to add a little flare to my entrance_. Little Boulder introduced her opponent first, him being listed higher on the individual rankings, albeit just barely. As Little Boulder shouted out her ring name, she jumped down from the balcony, spraying a jet of fire underneath her from each hand to slow down her fall.

A high-pitched cheer, much like that of a child screaming in joy, pierced through the boo's that Tau was used to accompanying her entrance. The scream was quickly cut off, as if a hand had been clamped on top of the cheerer's mouth.

The Dragon took her stance at the line as her opponent took his. He was wearing blues and browns, though they looked like part of a fake stage getup after seeing Nadia and Pukomo's authentic Water Tribe clothing. Tau was still sore after work, and she didn't feel as alert as she would have liked, but she stood confidently at the line. Little Boulder announced the start of the bout with as much zeal as a human being could possibly muster.

The water bender quickly drew up two orbs of water from the moat surrounding the ring, poising one at either side of him. He waited for the Dragon to strike first. _You could not get any more textbook water bender, _Tau though. She took a step forward, and with it punched out a blast of fire, noting that it was still blue for a fraction of a second before cooling. Her opponent blocked it easily, sending a small cloud of steam up into the arena, but Tau was now a few steps closer to him. The crowd cheered. A fire bender-water bender match up wasn't very common, and people were yelling at the water bender to hose the Dragon down.

Tau fan forward, and the water bender shot a stream of water at her. She weaved around it and rolled forward as he sent a spike of ice at her. She was soon in front of him, please with how little effort it took her. He stumbled back, trying to buy time to bend at her, but he needed to draw more water from the moat, and Tau leapt forward before he could do so.

She kicked at his shin, and he dropped to one knee. Off balance as he was, it wasn't hard for Tau to maneuver around to the other side of him and grab both of his wrists, bringing his arms around to his back so he couldn't bend and kicked at his knees so he fell to the ground. For a second she just knelt behind him.

The Dragon had its prey pinned, and like most confident predators, Tau decided to tease him a bit. She had always taken the first opportunity she got to take her opponent down and out, but this seemed too easy, too unsatisfying, like she wouldn't deserve the money. The thought of playing with her food made her stomach flip a little in anticipation and excitement.

And anyway, she told herself to justify the urge she had to play with the water bender, if she wanted to end the bout right there and then, she would need to either bend at the back of the water bender's head, something that would be deemed too dirty for even the more despised of ring fighters, or grapple him to the ground until she either pinned him down long enough or found an opportunity to deliver a strong blow to the head. She could probably do the latter without much resistance, but she needed to use this bout to convince Chelsea to tell her to had attacked her.

She leaned in and exhaled a fire bending enhanced breath onto the back of her opponent's neck. Sure enough, he squired desperately under her. She let him go, pushing him roughly as he ran forward so the audience would know that it was her decision to let him put some distance between them. She sent some fire at the water bender's feet, and his moccasin's caught on fire. He scurried to kick them off rather than put them out with water, and a few drunken laughs erupted from a few members of the audience who had forgotten that they were supposed to hate the fire bender.

He turned around, and his anger showed all too clearly on his face. _You mad? Whatcha gonna do about it?_ He raised his hands, and a small wave of water lifted from the moat. He threw his hands forward, and it charged toward her, drenching everything it came in contact with: the water bender, the floor, and soon Tau. The crowd cheered him on as he sought his revenge. _Too easy_, Tau thought. The bout would end here.

She widened her stance a little and let the sounds coming from the stands fade into the distance. Even the wall of water rapidly closing the distance between it and her was pushed to the back of her mind as she took a deep breath. She focused her energy on her right hand, and a small stream of lightning danced from her index finger to her thumb. The electricity quickly multiplied until a small electrical storm crackled around Tau's hand. The wall of water reached her, and she plunged her hand into the wave.

The water pushed back on her, and she just barely kept her footing. She could feel her opponent starting to freeze the water at her feet, rapidly encasing her as the ice travelled up her legs. It was over, though. The Dragon increased the intensity of the lightning as it spread out in the water. It reached the water bender before the ice reached her knees. He lost control of the water as the lightning travelled through his body. The water washed off the ring, and the water bender fell to the ground, twitching slightly as the electricity ran through him. Tau breathed fire down at her feet to melt the ice.

Little Boulder started the count because the water bender was still technically conscious, even though everyone knew he had already lost. He stopped twitching by the time the count was over, but he just lay on the ground. Tau worried for a few seconds that she had paralyzed him, but after Little Boulder announced her victory, he shakily pushed himself to his feet and walked out of the arena, not looking up at the disappointed crowd. Little Boulder jumped down and reached for her hand. When their skin touched, the static electricity still clinging to her body shocked him.

"Ow, that bout was quite the shocker!" he announced to the crowd, most of whom were grumbling about the result. Tau refused the opportunity to say something as usual and promptly left the ring. She entered the lounge area just as Quinn emerged from the tunnel that led to the fighter's viewing balcony.

"That was amazing! I didn't know you could lightning bend!" It had been the first time Tau had let out her lightning in a bout. It was dangerous to use against people who were not used to fighting against it, and she didn't want to permanently injure someone—or worse, kill them. She couldn't deny the excitement it had caused her to bend lightning for some reason other than to power Omashu. Quinn quickly wrapped her arms around the young fire bender before a messenger led her upstairs to Ganshu's office. When it was Tau's turn to see the arena manager, she walked in to see him smiling at her.

"I'll say, you made quite the statement for your first middle rank bout. I thought you'd beat Sanchu, but you dominated down there. And no one saw that lightning trick coming." He didn't expect a reply, so he continued.

"You know, you might just gain some fans after all. You were cruel, yet no-nonsense. Loved it." Ganshu handed her the envelope containing her winnings. He took up a much more serious tone. "I recommend that you don't let it get to your head, though. Wendell the Rock Thrower got sick, so I had to rearrange your next bout. It'll be at the same time, but you're facing the Plowman instead."

Tau winced internally, but Ganshu didn't see any reaction from the Dragon. The fighter looked completely calm and unfazed. The Plowman was expected to advance into the upper rank in the next few weeks. It would not be a pleasant bout, and Tau doubted she could win. The Plowman was smart and strong, and he always took the time to investigate the fighting styles of his opponents. She would have to try to catch him off guard with something new, and now her lighting bending wasn't a secret.

The Dragon stood and bowed before leaving. Ganshu sighed after the fire bender left the room. He knew that the Dragon was just a girl. A strong girl who was on the edge of being considered a woman, but a girl nonetheless, and while he had learned from watching her bouts not to underestimate her agility and strategy, she didn't believe that she stood a chance against the Plowman's ruthlessness.

When he had told the earth bender yesterday that he would be fighting the up and coming fire bender, he had stretched his cracked lips into a wide grin. The Plowman had long since stopped seeing his opponents as people, and he relished the fanfare that he received. He would be willing to go over the line with the young fire bender if it meant increasing his popularity with the fans who detested her.

Kiyi almost knocked the Dragon off her feet. "That was so cool!" she screamed, hugging the fighter's legs. Fong pulled his sister off of her, smiling shyly in apology. Kiyi went on and on about the fight until Fong quieted her. Chelsea walked down the alley toward them. Tau stood up straight and waited for the response to her long ago asked question. Chelsea regarded Tau quietly, still thinking before she sighed.

"Fine," she conceded. Tau let out the breath she had been holding. Kiyi looked at Chelsea, then at the Dragon. Tau could see the cogs turning her head before the little girl's eyes became wide.

"You know the Dragon?" she asked quietly, unbelieving.

"Um… yeah?" Chelsea shifted away a little from the girl and was bombarded with questions.

"That's so cool! How old is he? Is he a boy or a girl? Because if he's a girl, that'll complicate my plan to marry him. What's his favorite color? How can I make him fall in love with me? Is he pretty underneath the mask? You're not his girlfriend, are you?"

"Come on, Kiyi, it's getting late," Fong tugged at her hand.

"But… but…" the little girl looked at Tau again and then back to Chelsea, exasperated that she would miss her chance to learn more about the person under the mask. At the promise of more lychees, though, she let her brother drag her toward Bumi Plaza.

"That was quite the show," Chelsea said. "I'm considering buying a ticket for you next fight. I'll have to bring the whole crew, though, you were a badass out there," she teased.

"Yeah, you might want to skip my next fight. It's not going to be pretty." Chelsea brought her eyebrows down slightly in concern.

"Why?"

"It's just going to be tough bout. And I'd rather not have any of my coworkers see it." Chelsea didn't respond, and Tau had a feeling that she'd show up at the fight regardless.

"Anyway, you have a name to tell me?" Tau changed the topic, and Chelsea shifted her weight, uncomfortable with the new line of conversation.

"Please," the woman was close to begging. "I'll tell you his name so you know to avoid him, but please don't try to fight him."

"I can take him. I'm not going to get into the ring with him, I'm just going to give him a warning, make sure that he never touches another fire bender again."

"No, you can't approach him. Please." The look on Chelsea's face only reaffirmed Tau's determination to give the man a firm kick between the legs. A kick enhanced by fire so that he'll never be able to do what he did to Chelsea again even if he wanted to.

"Fine." Tau didn't' feel bad about lying to Chelsea. She needed the man's name.

"Okay. You promise not to approach him?'

"I promise." Chelsea sighed and ran her fingers though her hair, buying a few more seconds.

"Thenroh Injin," she said blankly, her hands shaking a little. Tau stepped forward and took the woman's hands in hers. Thenroh was the supervising manager of one of the metal bending divisions at the factory. He would know how tired a lightning bender would be after a shift, and it wouldn't be hard for him to either look up their shift times or wait until they coincided.

_He'll never even think of touching you again,_ Tau silently promised, knowing that if she actually spoke the words, the woman would never trust her again. _She'll find out after I actually beat him up, though._ Tau hoped though that the woman would have realized that it was necessary by that point. Thenroh was a non-bender, so all Tau needed was an empty alley or hallway.

Chelsea wrapped her arms around the younger fire bender and cried into her shoulder. Tau rubbed her back, and when the woman pulled away, she took off her mask and walked with her to her apartment.

Tau hoped that her roommates wouldn't notice he lack of footwear as she entered her apartment. Nadia called out a greeting from the kitchen, and Tau ushered Chelsea to her room. She quickly stashed her mask in her closet and threw on her pair of factory shoes and a different shirt before walking into the kitchen.

She introduced Chelsea to Nadia, who was trying to arrange the various vases, cloths, and other decorations she had bought. She was particularly unsatisfied with the kitchen table. Chelsea offered to help Nadia while Tau took advantage of the fact that her apartment had running water again. Thankfully, Pukomo was already sleeping.

When Tau came out of the bathroom, hair dry and warm, Nadia was off in the living room reading and Chelsea lounged on Tau's cough. Tau had fully expected Chelsea to have left by now; it was late, and Tau didn't even know why she had bothered to walk to her apartment with her given that it was quite out of the way for her. The older fire bender waved her into her room. She was lying down on the couch, head resting against the pillow. Tau closed the door behind her, and Chelsea shifted her feet so Tau could sit down before plopping them into her lap.

"You were pretty impressive out there."

"Well, I try. I get more money if I win, so…" Tau didn't bother finishing her sentence, a habit she had picked up with Chelsea. She had bonded a lot with the woman, and Chelsea was to her what she could only imagine an older sister would be. Chelsea had kicked off her shoes and socks, and she wiggled her toes, raising one eyebrow playfully at Tau.

The long lightning bending shifts could be especially brutal to someone's feet, and during Tau's first weeks—the weeks were she rarely finished a shift without collapsing and burning her hand—Chelsea would rub her feet to work out some of the pain. Tau had always returned the favor, and during particularly tiresome weeks they occasionally revisited the old habit.

"Come on, don't tell me being pregnant is making you soft," Tau teased.

"Hey, you're not going to deny a pregnant lady, are you?" Chelsea waved one foot up toward Tau's face.

"Nope." Tau grabbed the food and began pressing her fingers into the worn and calloused skin. Chelsea closed her eyes in relaxation as Tau pushed against the sore skin just as the woman had taught her months ago.

"Your roommate is pretty hot. She single?" Chelsea had always been open about her preferences when it came to her romantic interests, but the directness of the question caught Tau off guard.

"What?" Her hands stopped moving on Chelsea's foot.

"Oh, sorry, didn't realize she already had an admirer." Chelsea was trying to—and was very close to failing to—keep a massive grin off of her face.

"What? No!" Tau almost jumped off the couch. "No—I just wasn't expecting you to say something like that." She knew Chelsea was just teasing her, but she couldn't help the blush that crept onto her face. Chelsea lifted her feet from Tau's lap and stretched them, satisfied with the feeling that accompanied it. She drew her feet in and sat up, crowing her legs.

"Give 'em here," she said, and gestured toward Tau's feet. The younger woman kicked them up onto Chelsea's lap. She stretched out and lay down on the couch, folding her arms behind her head and leaning back on the armrest. Chelsea expertly worked the tension and stress out of her feet. Tau looked up to see a mischievous look on Chelsea's face after she finished with the girl's feet.

"Sit up," she urged, excitement twinkling in her eyes. Tau did as she was told, eyeing the woman carefully. Chelsea had pulled pranks on the younger fire bender before, never anything dangerous or in front of other people, but she had embarrassed her a few times. "Turn around."

"Um…" Tau hesitated, and Chelsea grabbed her shoulders and pushed them until she relented. Tau sat with her back toward the woman, her legs crossed. Chelsea scooted closer to her until Tau could feel the woman's knees against her lower back. "What're you—"

"Do you trust me," Chelsea asked Tau's left ear, a playful tone still dancing in her voice.

"With my life."

"Then shut up already," Chelsea laughed, and she rested her hands firmly on the spots between Tau's shoulders and her neck. She rubbed her thumbs against her upper back, slowly adding pressure. She massaged first one shoulder and then the other, alternating between using the heel of her hand and her fingers, Tau having to press back against the force or risk falling forward. Chelsea worked her way to Tau's neck, up which she worked until her fingers carefully rubbed and pressed just below her skull. Tau hummed in pleasure.

Chelsea shifted behind her, pulling her arms away, and Tau worried that she was done. Chelsea instructed her to lean forward more, and Tau bent over, exposing more of her back. A deft elbow was lightly placed slightly to the side of Tau's spine. Chelsea leaned forward and dug the elbow down into the constantly sore muscles.

"Holy spirit waters," Tau mumbled, and she heard Chelsea chuckle. The pressure against her back was painful at times when it met a particularly knotted or stubborn muscle, but it was well worth the temporary pain. By the time Chelsea was done, every muscle groan in pleasure. Tau sat up, and Chelsea leaned forward and rested her head against the girl's shoulder.

"See what happens when you trust me," she laughed a little as she roughly rubbed her fingers through Tau's short hair, rustling it into an unkempt mess.

"Hmmmm," Tau responded, leaning her head against the side of the Chelsea's. Chelsea let her hand fall from the girl's hair. She reached it around Tau's front and clasped it onto her opposite shoulder, sliding her other arm around the girl's waist. The two of them didn't move for a few minutes, Tau's eyes closed as she leaned into Chelsea, who held her tight. They both lived relatively lonely lives, and the peaceful, warm company was much needed by both of them.

"I don't want you to do anything stupid," Chelsea pleaded. Tau knew she was talking about Thenroh. "I care about you too much to see you get hurt by him."

"He won't hurt me," Tau assured her. _And he'll never hurt you again_. Chelsea stood up after another few minutes of silence.

"It's late. I'm going to head home." Tau started to stand up. "No, I can show myself out." She paused at the door. "We should do this more often," she suggested.

"Yeah."

Chelsea silently opened the door and snuck out of the apartment. Tau stretched out on the couch, sleeping on her stomach so as not to disturb the peaceful feeling emanating from her back. Chelsea was one of the few people in the city for whom she would gladly die. The woman always showed her unconditional care and warmth. When poverty had hit her hard after moving to Omashu, it had been Chelsea's shoulder upon which she had emptied as many tears as she could possibly produce.

She knew she would regret it for years to come if she didn't stand up to Thenroh on her behalf. He managed the building next to the lightning division, and if she was lucky enough to have one of her shifts align with his in the next few days, and if she was crafty enough to follow him unnoticed from the factory, she knew he would leave the encounter forever terrified of the lightning benders.


	5. Chapter 5

Tau had just over two days until her fight with the Plowman Usually, she would strategize while lightning bending at work. The erasure of her conscious thoughts and suppression of her emotions allowed her body to do the thinking for her. Eventually, she'd sit down on a bench during a break, and she would be able to feel how her body wanted to respond to the image of her opponent in the ring. Sometimes, it would be careful, paying close attention to the ground, and other times it would itch for her to move first. It would either tell her to close the gap or keep her distance, go for a knock out or grapple for a timed victory. From that basic sketch, she would then let her head analyze the details.

But when she pictured the Plowman opposite her in the ring, her gut dropped in panic, her spine twitched her arms and legs into a desperate, defensive stance, and her feet told her to run. Tau had seen him fight. He had no rules. No consistency. He loved his fans, and he listened to them when they asked for more.

_He's going to unmask me. _The thought abruptly halted Tau's breathing and bending. Chelsea looked over at her when she realized the girl's rhythm had stopped.

"Hey," she whispered. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Tau turned back to her work and pushed aside all the thoughts of the Plowman from her head. She had another bully with which to deal first. It was her second shift at the plant since Chelsea told her the name of her assailant. Her first shift hadn't matched up with his, but she was getting out after the evening shift, so there was a good chance she would be able to find him tonight.

Tau lingered a little in the locker room. She shot Ren a look, and he took his time arranging some clothes in his locker, cleaning it all out and re-organizing the meticulous stack.

"Is something wrong?" he asked when they were alone.

"No, I just have a question." Ren waited, and Tau wasn't sure how to continue. It would sound ridiculous for her to just say her fire is changing color. "Watch this." There was a large pad on one of the walls that the lightning benders could use if they wanted to warm up before their shift. Tau walked over to it and bended as long a blast of fire as she could manage in her post-shift exhaustion.

"It-It was blue," Ren mused. And if Tau's processing wasn't too muddled from the shift, it had held the color for a fraction of a second longer than it had during her previous ring fight.

"Yeah. I noticed it about two days ago. I don't know if it's my lightning messing with it or what, but I'd figure I'd see if you knew anything about it."

"Does it feel any different?"

"A little hotter, I think, but it's hard to tell. Besides that, it's just the same."

"Well," Ren scratched his beard. His eyebrows were tugged together slightly. "It's not unheard of, but it's not awfully common either. I don't think it's someone that you can train to get. But I don't know enough about it to know if it's supposed to do this—slowly build up—and what could cause it. The only person I've heard of who's not long dead who could bend blue fire was…" he didn't say the infamous princess' name, "and no one's seen her for decades." He thought again for a few seconds.

"You couldn't be…?" he let the question hand in the air.

"No, no. I couldn't," Tau assured him. "My mother was an Omashu native. And my father's family isn't related to hers as far as know." She was sure that if there had been anyone in her family—even from a dozen generations before her—her father would have told her. _And I'm sure he'd try to find a way to train that into me, too_. She bit back at the bitter thought. She didn't like it when she caught herself thinking ill of her late father. Ren continued rubbing his jaw.

"I guess then that you're fire's just getting hotter on it's own. It's not a bad thing—not that I know of—and I've never heard of it being a symptom of over-bending." He clasped a hand on Tau's shoulder, smiling a little to comfort her, but she still felt uneasy about the chance in her fire's nature.

She had been bending furiously since she was little, always pushing her abilities and skills to and over the limit, so why was this happening now? She had paid careful attention to the feeling of the blue fire, and there didn't seem to be any kind of electrical discharge in it, so it couldn't be her lightning whacking up her system. Ren knew of pretty much all the fire benders in the city—not that there were many—and she had hoped that he could at least direct her to someone who knew more about the topic.

_I guess I'll only find out if I go to the Fire Nation. _The thought was silly, and Tau knew it. She couldn't afford to take a day off, nonetheless a vacation to her great-grandfather's homeland. She sighed and leaned back against a locker.

"Is there anything else?" Ren asked.

"Yeah." When Tau didn't elaborate, Ten sat down on a bench and waited patiently. He knew that communication was never the girl's strong suit, and that she'd eventually form the right words in her head. He might need to wait a while, though.

"I won't apologize for it." Tau realized she made no sense, but Ren didn't ask about what she was talking. He just waited, his eyebrows starting to knit slightly in concern.

"I know you won't tell anyone," Tau finally continued, "and it didn't feel right to keep you out of the loop. I'll admit to you that it was me, and you'll know what it is after it's done, but I won't apologize for it. You need to know that I needed to do it." Ren carefully picked out the words for his response. He stood up and gently grabbed her shoulders.

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to." He had no clue as to the nature of the future act, but he knew he already didn't like it. She was too young, and he didn't want to see her fall into criminal violence, theft, or arson.

"No, I have to do this. I won't be able to live with myself if I don't do it, but it's going to cause a cabbage cart of a mess, and I just think it's best that you know it that it was me. I'll tell you why afterward, and—trust me—it'll make a lot more sense. But I have to do it, and I don't want you worrying yourself about who did it."

"Okay. But don't do anything you don't have to." Ren knew that if Tau was committed to this, pushing the subject would only cause her to turn away from him in the future. He pulled her into a hug that she felt she didn't deserve. Even if Ren did know what Thenroh Injin had done, she knew that he would take a non-violent path. _But that's why he's him, and I'm me._

Tau let Ren leave before her. She carefully snuck to the side of the building next to the lightning division. The precise times that shifts ended were staggered through the factory to cut down on traffic, and the benders of Metal Division Four were starting to trickle out. Tau guessed that the supervising manager would probably stay behind to chat with whomever was taking his place for the next shift or a stray coworker before leaving.

Tau could feel the adrenaline numbing the pain in her legs. They were different from the nerves she got before a ring fight; those she were used to. She felt as if everyone who walked by her was secretly watching her, as if a security guard was waiting around the corner, as if every window hid behind eyes that were waiting for proof of her guilt.

Technically, ring fighting was illegal—well, it was illegal if there were no bets going on, but bets were the stadium's main source of income. And if Ganshu's bribes ever fell threw, she doubted she could be convicted with nothing but a fine because she never visited the betting booth. This was big, though. This could put her in jail so long she'd forget what her own face looked like.

Tau followed Thenroh from a distance, trying to make it look like she was just another tired bender hobbling home. She got in the same train car as the general supervisor, but hung out at the opposite end. Thenroh's stop was much further into the city than Tau's career track would ever allow her to inhabit, and she carefully traced his steps a from the distance of a few dozen feet, hoping no bystanders would notice her socio-economic background and think it strange that scum was in their middle class neighborhood.

Thankfully, as most of the residents in the area were wealthy enough to either be asleep at this time or somewhere besides the streets, there were few people on the sidewalks and roads. As Thenroh walked into an alleyway, Tau pulled a cloth out from her uniform pocket. She tied it around her nose and let it hang over her mouth and chin. She quickly followed this up with a wool hat that she pulled down to her eyes and into which she tucked her hair. Thenroh was halfway down the alley. She punched a bolt of lightning at his feet.

"Don't move," she growled, distorting her voice. The non-bender complied, turning around toward her and holding his hands up. She walked closer to him, but not close enough that he'd be able to make out any specifics about her face that might show. "If you so much as budge, I'll end your life here and now. And don't test me," she warned. She could feel the stress and paranoia that had been winding up in her rush out the moment she threw out a bolt of her lightning. A smirk spread under the cloth over her mouth at the coldness of her voice.

"I-I understand," Thenroh gulped. "You can have my money. It's in my left jacket pocket," he said quickly, hoping to get this over with quickly. _Well, if he's offering. _Tau doubted he would care much about his wallet after what she was about to do.

"Take it out. Slowly." Thenroh carefully reached into his pocket with one hand. He pulled the wallet out and held it in the air for Tau to see.

"Toss it here." Tau wanted to speak as little as possible. The wallet fell to the ground a foot in front of her, and she swooped it up and into one of the pockets in her uniform, all the while keeping two fingers pointed at Thenroh. He was practically quaking in his shiny shoes. He waited, hoping that his attacker would let him go now. He started to grow nervous when he was comforted only by silence and a pair of threating fingers.

"You hurt one of my friends," Tau barked at him.

"I'm so sorry," he stumbled over his words as his fear made him start to twitch slightly. "I didn't mean to. There's plenty of money there, and if you want you can take my watch, too. And my shoes."

"No," Tau shook her head. She almost laughed when she saw the man in front of her turn slightly green. She could practically feel the man squirming in the grasp of her hand, a grip that was bout to curl in on him with a snapping crunch. She couldn't help but tease him.

"That's the problem I have. I can forgive crimes that are done out of necessity or by accident, but you meant to hurt her." Tau spoke slowly, letting cold poison slide over her tongue. "You ambushed her while she was weak, and now she's pregnant." Thenroh's eyes grew wider when he realized about whom his attacker was speaking.

"Her life was rough enough as it was, but now she's going to be a single mother with a cruddy income. Every cent of worth you have on you isn't enough to fix something like this. Nothing is."

"Please, please don't hurt me," he begged. "I'll pay her! I'll give her enough money to move to a good district, and-and she'll have enough money to take care of her child, to even send him or her to a good school. I promise!" He squealed as his unidentifiable attacked took another step forward. _Pig._

"If there's anything this city has taught me," Tau said, her voice calm and level, "it's that people like you don't keep their promises. You don't care about us. So that leaves me with only one option."

Thenroh didn't even have the change to flinch before the bolt of lightning crashed into his hips. He screamed as he fell to the floor, writhing in pain. Tau heard shouts close by, and she took one last look at the man, groaning and heaving on the ground, tears falling onto the stone underneath him. _I'm so glad I did that_.

Tau couldn't help but smile. It wasn't quite the justice Chelsea deserved; she would still struggle to raise her child, and besides the loss of the ability to perform certain actions, Thenroh would only leave the encounter scarred, both physically and mentally, and one wallet poorer.

Tau ran out of the alleyway and through the streets, weaving through the darkest streets as she made her way to the outer districts of the city. Several people she passed gave her looks, but no one moved to stop her. She didn't remove the cloth and hat, throwing them into a dumpster, until she reached the outskirts of the district in which she lived. She took out Thenroh's wallet. _Whoa, that's a lot of money to carry around._ She emptied the various bills and notes into her pocket and threw out everything else.

She was still high on victory when she arrived at her apartment. Pukomo was sleeping, _what a surprise_, but Nadia had stayed up to see her. The water bender had a smile on her face, and Tau guessed that she had gotten a job at one of the hospitals.

"Guess what?" the tan woman asked, just barely keeping her excitement from bubbling over.

"What?" Tau didn't want to steal any of her thunder.

"I got a job at a hospital!" Nadia jumped up from the chair she had been sitting in and tacked her, wrapping the shorter woman in a hug.

"That's great! When do you start?"

"Tomorrow." Nadia was still squirming in joy.

"Is there… something else?"

"Yes!" Nadia couldn't help but shout. Tau had never seen her so excited before. "I got a second job, too."

"Hmmm, makes sense. Pukomo doesn't really seem like the breadwinner type," Tau joked, earning a laugh from Nadia.

"Yeah, it's really cool. Not as well paying as the hospital, but I'll still be able to practice my healing."

"Awesome. Lay in on me." Nadia looked like a little girl about to show off a toy she had won at a Fire Festival.

"You're not allowed to tell people, though." Tau hesitated a little, the smile faltering on her lips. The only illegal healing jobs she could think of were gang work and underground first aid, and getting involved with either was a slope too often too slippery for even the most careful of treadders.

"Oh, don't worry. It's not all that bad. I'm going to be a healer at a fighting ring!" Tau smiled at Nadia while she cringed internally. There was only one fighting ring in Omashu. That meant that Nadia was now technically her coworker.

"That is cool. Had Pukomo had any luck?" Tau changed the topic of conversation.

"Not yet, but he's been working really hard." _Yeah, I doubt that_.

Tau stayed up for another hour talking to Nadia. Tau herself wasn't very talkative, but her curt answers didn't seem to bother the water bender. They moved into Tau's room so the fire bender could change. She felt a little awkward undressing in front of the woman, but Nadia kept on talking as if it was no big deal. _Maybe I'm just being a little sensitive._

They sat down on Tau's couch. She hadn't realized that she had missed the scent of rain on her pillow last night, but Nadia and Pukomo were not sleeping in little cots in the bedroom they shared. The water bender kept on chatting about all the strange things about the city: the lack of canals, the unorganized road system, the reliance on technology and construction, the way the air tasted.

"I have to admit, I thought it was going to be easier." Nadia's tone took a turn downward, and Tau reached one arm over her shoulder and hugged her from the side.

"Hey, this city is overrated. But healing is a steady job. You can work your way up to a doctor, and if you get really good, you'll be able to live in a good district with no problems. Even if all Pukomo does is sleep," she added, and Nadia couldn't help but laugh like the ring of a wind chime. She took a deep sigh and leaned her head on Tau's shoulder.

They didn't speak, just enjoying the company. Tau liked friendships like this: ones that don't require her constant attention or long winded replies to every comment. She took a deep breath and found the scent she had missed last night. She closed her eyes and let the peace and serenity tug her into sleep.

It was raining when Tau woke up, and for a second she thought there must have been a leak somewhere because she could smell the fresh water. Then she realized that she was still leaning against Nadia. At some point, either to become more comfortable or because of the pressure from Tau's sleeping body, the water bender had tipped over so she was on her side. Tau had apparently followed her, and her head rested just above the water bender's hip, her nose brushing Nadia's bare upper arm.

Tau carefully lifted herself, not bothering her roommate. She walked into the kitchen at grabbed an apple. She realized that Nadia had been keeping the cupboard full since she had arrived. _I should probably go shopping some time and return the favor_.

She ate leisurely before heading out to walk through the streets of the city. She still didn't have a plan for her fight with the Plowman. Maybe a long walk would help her sort her thoughts.

Several hours later, Tau returned to her apartment idealess. She had been out much longer than she had intended after she rested for two hours in the only park within which it would be acceptable for her to appear dressed in her lower class raiment. She would have to rush to catch her train for work. Pukomo was out, and when Tau ran into her room to change, Nadia was still there, lying on her couth and playing with a small orb of water, bending it into different shapes.

"Hey, going to work?" she asked. It looked like she was just casually bending, but as the water moved to form the Omashu Power Facilities logo Tau realized that Nadia's face was scrunched in concentration. It was adorable. _But no telling her that. _

"Yeah. Gotta run, though." Nadia molded the water into a symbol Tau didn't recognize as she quickly changed into her uniform. "See you later!"

Tau just barely made her train, though it was the late train, and she'd still need to run into the factory to get into her gear in time. She barged into the locker room, expecting to find it empty. She almost ran into Hajin. _What in the—?_

Everyone was there. The whole lightning crew for this shift was sitting uncomfortably on the benches. Also present were Hajin, Pei, and a woman who's nametag read 'Ji Yung'—_oh, that's bad,_ Tau had never seen the factory manager before, but there was no way it could possibly be some other Ji Yung—and, Tau noticed lastly, and Air nomad. 

The nomad wore that silly flying suit Tau had seen only once in person, and he had inch-long bleached blonde hair. A thick strip of it though was dyed blue to match the arrow tattoo on his forehead. He couldn't have been much older than Tau. She looked nervously around the room, knowing what this routine-halting meeting was about.

"Thank you for finally joining us," Hajin spat, annoyed that his superior had seen one of his employees nearly arrive late. Tau didn't say anything and sat down on the closest available seat. Unfortunately, that seat was at the end of a bench that left her unsettlingly close to Ji Yung.

"As some of you already know," Hajin announced, "Thenroh Injin, one of our respected general managers, was attacked and mugged last night by a lightning bender wearing a uniform from this factory. This tragic event has rippled through the ranks and affected many of us, and there has been a resounding call for justice, even among your peers." _Yeah, and I'm half-spirit. _

"While we wish not to accuse any of our valued employees, it is crucial for everyone's safety that we find and persecute this criminal immediately. During today's shift, we will interrogate all of you individually about last night's events. Any questions?" Ren raised his hand. He addressed the young air bender.

"What's your name, son?"

"Nefron, sir." The name sounded foreign. The nomad had light skin, but brown eyes, and his facial featured didn't scream Fire Nation. He could perhaps be related to nobility in the former Earth Kingdom, or he could possibly be from the Republic.

"Ah, yes," Hajin interjected before either the nomad or Ren could speak again. "Nefron is here representing both the Air Nomads and the Omashu Police today. Given the heinous nature of the crime, we've deemed the criminal to be highly dangerous, and Nefron volunteered to help us restrain and capture them if the need arise." It wasn't a compliment, but Tau felt proud that she had been deemed 'highly dangerous.

Hajin shot a stern glance quickly at all of the lighting benders, as if daring one to stand up or speak. None of the lightning benders said a word, and they were dismissed to their converting machines. Ren was questioned first, and it wasn't until an hour and a half later that he entered the converting room, escorted by the Air Nomad. Nefron looked down at a piece of paper and called a name. A lightning bender followed him out of the room.

Ren didn't appear to be hurt in any way, just tired. He shot her a glance. It didn't hold any particular meaning except for the fact that before promptly stepping up to his converting machine he had bothered to make eye contact with her. She knew he didn't tell them anything he knew.

The rest of the interrogations lasted significantly shorter than Ren's. After five more hours, of the sixteen lightning benders there for the shift, there were only two left to question: Tau and Chelsea, and Tau hoped that it was just a coincidence. Chelsea went first, and she was back in ten minutes, though when she return she merely sat down on the bench. Her face was unreadable, and she didn't look Tau's way, but she held her stomach. _Maybe Ji Yung realized she was pregnant and told her to rest for a while? _Neither Hajin nor Pei were kind enough to give anyone any time to rest unless they were five minutes from bleeding out, but Tau knew nothing about Ji Yung except that the woman intimidated her worse than the Plowman.

Nefron called Tau's name, and she followed the nomad through the halls and up several flights of stairs to the administrative halls.

"Hey," she said, trying to be friendly and bowing her head slightly.

"Hi." He smiled back at her a little, appreciating the greeting. It didn't look like he was enjoying his grunt work. _There must be some other reason he's in Omashu. _

"I'm guessing you're an air bending master before?" she asked, a little curious about the blue tattoo.

"Yup, got 'em a few months ago. Pretty neat, huh?"

"Yeah. I guess I'll think twice then about blasting you through the window." Tau gave him her best I'm-a-nefarious-villain look.

"Wait, what?" He stuttered, taking a step back and raising his arms defensively. Tau burst out laughing.

"I was only joking. You'll find that all the fire benders here deeply respect the Air Nomads."

"Oh, really?" He still looked at her cautiously. Tau hunched a little into a casual stance.

"Yeah. Let's just say that one of you guys really saved out hides in the past."

"Oh, what happened?"

"Something a long time ago," Tau waved her hand in dismissal and they kept walking. The silence was still a little tense, not because of any dislike between the two, but because of the situation at hand.

"Hey, weird question, but I'm sorta low on cash, and I'm not familiar with the city. Do you know any good, cheap places to get some food? And it needs to have vegetarian options."

"Yeah, no problem." Tau was starting to like the nomad. If they weren't in a situation similar to guard and criminal, she thought they would make good friends. "The Omashu Star street cart is my go to. It should be around the corner of Fenswu and Hemnar Street tonight. In the Yuna District."

"Thanks, man." They came to a door with no window in it. Nefron escorted Tau inside. Pei, Hajin, and Ji Yung sat on one side of a hard looking metal table. There was one chair across from them.

Tau sat down in the chair and noticed that it was slightly lower than normal, making Tau feel smaller than she typically did. _If this is intentional… _she though. She glanced down at the chair again and then looked at Ji Yung, lifting one eyebrow ever so slightly in a question. The woman couldn't help but smile the tiniest amount. _That is genius. _Even if the woman would be interrogating her about a crime of which she was guilty, she couldn't help but be impressed with her.

Then the door closed behind Nefron. Tau knew that Pei pretty much hated all of the fire benders, and Hajin would have it out for her after she threatened him. Ji Yung had a small notebook in front of her open to a blank page. She grabbed her pen and poised it above the paper. _Lefty, nice. _Tau tried to keep her brain focused on anything besides the fact that she was the "highly dangerous" criminal for which they were looking.

"Name?" Ji Yung asked, and there was a second of silence before the lightning bender realized that she was supposed to answer the question.

"Tau."

"Surname?"

I don't use it." Not having a formal surname wasn't uncommon amongst the lower classes.

"Regardless." It took Tau a moment to realize she had already messed up. She should have just said that she didn't have one. She couldn't remember if the factory had it on file somewhere, so she couldn't risk lying.

"Hou." Ji Yung's pen scribbled. If the woman recognized her surname or put two and two together, she didn't show any sign of it. Hajin's eyes grew wide for a second in disbelief, though.

"Where were you last night after your shift?"

"How soon after my shift?" The pen scratched against the paper, and Tau wondered if she had made a mistake. She thought it was a viable question. She theoretically could have gone to several places last night.

"Just take us through your night."

"Well, I was really tired after my shift, so I took a long shower and was slower to get ready to leave the factor than usual." Tau hoped that she seemed honest. She knew that Thenroh wasn't attacked on factory grounds, so telling as much of the truth would probably help cover up the lies. "I said goodbye to Ren. I think we were the last ones out of there, but I can't be sure. I missed my usual train, though, and had to wait for the next. I took that to my stop—"

"Which is?" The pen had been hard at work the whole time.

"Genu Station, ma'am." Tau didn't know if the respectful term would help her get on Ji Yung's good side, but it was worth a go. "I started walking home—toward 467 Henla Street—but I got tired, so I took a quick detour to When Lu Park. I don't know exactly how long I was there. I think I rested there for an hour or so? Then I went home."

"What time did you get home?"

"About midnight."

"Do you live alone?"

"No, I have two roommates."

"Could they verify what you've told us?"

"Yeah. Only one of them was awake at the time, though." Ji Yung was silent for a bit. She closely examined Tau's face. The young woman shifted a little nervously. The woman waited for Tau to become suitably uncomfortable before asking her next question.

"What did you and Ren talk about?" Tau hesitated a little. Ji Yung scratched a note on the paper, and Tau could feel her hands become hot and sweaty. She resisted the urge to wipe them on her uniform pants.

"It sounds a little weird." Ji Yung looked up and raised both of her eyebrows. Tau discretely took a long breath. _Tell as much of the truth as you can, and just hope that Ren had done the same._

"Go on." There was an uncomfortable amount of suspicion in the woman's voice.

"Well, sometimes bending so much lightning for so long can have… unhealthy side effects," she shot a quick glance at Pei and Hajin. "I noticed a few days ago that something was off when I fire bended, so I asked Ren about it." Ji Yung waited. Her pen was still, and Tau guessed that Ren had already told her about this, that the woman was now just waiting to see if she'd slip up somewhere.

"For a second—and I can show you if you'd like proof—my fire flashes blue before cooling to red. Ren hadn't heard of it happening because of over-bending, nor did he know of anyone who'd had a similar problem." Tau braced herself for another question, for an accusation, for Ji Yung to tell her that her story hadn't matched up with Ren's and that they were both going to be held in jail for further questioning.

"Tell it backwards."

"Pardon?"

"Go over the events of last night, but backwards." Tau diverted eyes for a second and collected her thoughts. She traced out a path with one finger as she retold the night's events in reverse order.

"I went to sleep, saw one of my roommates, got to my apartment building, rested in When Lu park, got off the train at Genshu Station, got on the train a little late than I had hoped, Ren told me he didn't know what was up with my fire, it took longer than normal to get ready after the shift ended, and I finished my shift." Tau watched as Ji Yung's pen travelled up the sheet of paper as she retold her alibi. She sat in silence as the woman examined her notes.

"Why exactly did it take you so long to shower and change after your shift?" _Spirits, she doesn't let anything slip by her._ Tau quickly thought. She couldn't say that she was just extraordinarily tired that day. Ji Yung's pen started to rise, and the perfect reason cleared the panicked fog in her mind.

For once, she was glad for a particular, paranoid skill her father had drilled into her. He had always had a life plan for her that would have never included being a mere factory worker, and it only hit her now, when this particular train of thought entered her mind, that she realized she had been instinctively following his advice for a larger portion of the interrogation.

_And if that was unconscious, _dozens of practiced techniques were suddenly rushing to the forefront of her mind, _it's about time I put some of my father's teachings to use._

"Well… Um… I was just more tired and sore than normal because, you know…" Tau flushed her cheeks in embarrassment. She made a point of quickly glancing at Pei and Hajin uncomfortably before bringing her eyes back to Ji Yung. The woman looked, for once, confused, and her solid, stern expression faltered away from suspicion. Tau fidgeted with her fingers as she struggled to find and speak the proper words.

Ji Yung was stunned. The girl in front of her fit Thenroh's description of his attacker: a short lightning bender with the honey orange eye color rare even for people of Fire Nation heritage. And Hajin had told her that the girl had a tendency to be aggressive. Hajin had actually requested that they lock her up at the beginning of the investigation he was so sure of her guilt. Her story so far held together, but any good liar could whip up a decent alibi. What she was more concerned with was the girl's body language.

But this was something Ji Yung hadn't expected. The very way the girl held herself pointed to her embarrassment. She looked as if she was trying to tell the woman something without having to actually say it. Even if she had something to be embarrassed about, if she was a criminal trying to keep an innocent face she would have stated her excuse with no hesitation. _If this girl's acting, she better try out for the movers._

"It was…" Tau continued. "You know… that time… when it's kinda harder to do such heavy exercise."

"Oh." A slight blush crept up Ji Yung's face. Tau sighed. Ji Yung saw it as a sigh of relieve that she didn't need to say the words out loud. _Ha, _Tau kept her smile inward, keeping up her façade. _You guys work me way too hard to allow my body the energy to bleed monthly, but I guess you wouldn't know about that._

"Do you have any questions?" Ji Yung asked her coworkers. Thankfully, they didn't. Ji Yung gestured to Nefron, and the Air Nomad led the fire bender out of the room.

"Well," Hajin asked.

"If she's our criminal, she did a masterful job of hiding it."

"Wait," Hajin's mouth turned down in disappointment. "So she didn't show any signed of guilt or mess up anywhere?"

"No, nothing unusual for someone who's under the pressure of a questioning like this. But just because I couldn't tell if she was lying doesn't mean that she wasn't."

"But do we have enough to bring her in to the police to be questioned by a truth seer?"

"No. But we can't cross her off the list, yet."

"But it couldn't have been anyone else," Pei complained. He had never liked the girl.

"Well, I won't have her locked up unless I have some kind of proof. Fitting the height range and eye color isn't enough to persecute her. We'd have to bring in every lightning bender who's even close to that description to make our case seem unbiased in court."

"She's a lightning bender, no one would care if we were biased or not."

"I won't risk the reputation of the factory or jeopardize our case by rushing to conclusions." Her voice was cold, and neither man argued with her.

Ji Yung did have her suspicions, though. Something about the girl made her feel risky and unafraid. She needed to know something important though before moving on to a second round of questioning. There was a reason she always handled internal investigations in the factor: her instincts were sharp, and while she followed the basic codes of justice—unlike the actual police or most of the legal system—she was relentless and firm. If Tau was lying to her, she'd find out.

But what she needed to know what why Thenroh. The assailant had clearly been a lightning bender working at the factory, and of the half dozen that fit Thenroh's description Ji Yung could only picture the girl risking her life and career to send a message to the general supervisor. _Oh, to be young and ignore the threat of consequences._

Ji Yung knew that the message was sent. She now needed to know what the message was. If a lightning bender was simply upset at factory conditions or pay, why not target on of their direct superiors? If she knew the answer to her question, she would be able to interrogate the lightning benders until one of them either cracked and gave her something she could work with or confessed.

"Nefron," she ordered when he returned. "We need to know why Thenroh was targeted. Mingle with the lightning benders and see if you can find out why any of them would have any issues with him."

"Um…" the young air bender scratched at some patchy, blonde stubble on his face. "Wont they be suspicious of me?"

"You're an Air Nomad. Say you've been relieved of your duties here and that you're curious as to what you can help them with." She waved her hand dismissively, and the young man left.

"So, we're just going to wait to see if someone happens to mention Thenroh? I don't think any of them would be that stupid," Hajin noted.

"That's why you're going to talk to Thenroh when he's recovered enough. Get him to tell you why he was attacked. Someone wanted him to hurt for a reason."

Ji Yung stood up and left. She had a lot of work to do that day besides the investigation. But as she sat down at her desk she found it hard to work. Her mind kept flip-flopping between conviction that the girl was guilty or innocent. _I can't read her. She wouldn't do anything that big without a reason, but she doesn't seem like someone to something like that for person gain. There's something important here I don't know. _

Chelsea made it painfully obvious that she was following Tau after their shift ended. The woman wouldn't walk to her younger friend, glaring at her from afar and ignoring her when they were within speaking distance. Tau quickly gave up trying to talk to her friend.

Chelsea followed her all the way to her apartment. Tau held the door open and she marched straight in. Neither Nadia nor Pukomo were home yet. Chelsea turned around in the living room and started at Tau.

"So…" Tau began. "I'm guessing you didn't follow me into my home just to give me that look." Chelsea took one step toward the girl and slapped her.

_Ow! Spirit jungles!_ Tau brought her hand up to her cheek. She could feel her eyes start to water because of the stinging pain.

"I told you not to approach him!" Chelsea was fuming, and Tau could actually see smoke spurt from her mouth as she shouted the words. She had never seen the woman this mad. "They're going to lock you up and starve you!"

"Don't worry, I did perfectly fine during their interrogation."

"That was just round one!" Chelsea was starting to cry now. "There are only a few dozen of us, and unless you wore stilts and tinted glasses, I'm sure they've already narrowed it down to you and a handful of others." Chelsea was sobbing by now. Tau stepped toward her and tried to wrap her arms around the woman.

"Hey, it'll be okay. Don't worry." Chelsea pushed her away.

"No, no it won't. They won't stop until they've locked someone up, and it won't be long until they figure out it was you." Tau approached Chelsea again, and this time her attempt to push her away was too weak. Tau hugged the woman tightly and led her to the couch.

"Don't worry. Hey, look at me." Chelsea finally looked at her since she started crying. A sob hitched her up her shoulders. "I couldn't let him get away with hurting my best friend. And before they find out it was me, they'll have to find out why I did it. They won't want to bring that into court for the factory's reputation."

"But they'll fire you. You won't have a job, and no one will want to hire you."

"That's okay. I've been in worse situations before. I have skills I can fall back on. And I have some family from my mother's side somewhere in Omashu, they'll help me out." The thought that she might need to either follow the path her father intended for her or seek our her mother's family wasn't comforting to Tau.

Chelsea just buried her head in the younger woman's shoulder. She cried until Tau's shirt became wet with tears and slimy from mucus. Tau rubbed the woman's back, and they sat there on the couch, not speaking. After a while, Tau stood up and changed into a clean shirt.

Tau wasn't sure what to do. Chelsea was wrapped in her arms, leaning forward onto her chest and clinging onto her shirt. Chelsea eventually fell asleep, and Tau carefully readjusted themselves so she was comfortable enough to fall asleep herself. Tomorrow she'd be fighting the Plowman—still without a plan—and then she'd have to work the morning shift and possibly be interrogated again. _Spirits help me, this is going to be rough. _


	6. Chapter 6

Tau was underground. She couldn't see anything, but she could feel the hard rock under her bare feet, and the air was cold. Even before she fire bended a small flame into the palm of her hand, she knew that the cavern was small. And that she was trapped.

The air tasted like dirt and smelled heavy and rich. The cavern was only just taller than she and as wide on either side of her as her arm span. She quickly extinguished her flame when she saw that the walls caging her in were solid. The air suddenly felt thinner, and the hair on her arms tingled.

She tried to make her breaths as shallow as possible. The ground shuddered underneath her, and she fell to the ground, slammer the heels of her palms into the rock. She curled into a ball as the earth continued shaking. She didn't dare light another flame. She knew what she'd see, anyway.

The walls were closing in around her.

She hugged her knees closer. She tried not to breathe. The air was getting colder. She felt as if she were slowly getting lighter and lighter to match the vanishing air. Her lungs burned as air she had already inhaled twice over failed to clear the spinning in her head. Then, she felt the ground underneath her warm. The heat grew and dispersed into the scant amount of space left. She was falling through the earth, nearing the place from which lava erupted. She squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears, wondering if she stayed dreaming long enough whether she would die first from the heat, the shrinking space, or the lack of oxygen.

Tau would have jumped off of the couch if Chelsea hadn't still been leaning against her chest. She tried to calm her breathing as she lifted one hand from Chelsea's back to her face, wiping a little bit of sweat from her face. Chelsea, awake, looked up at Tau. Her eyes were puffy and red from recently crying.

"Are you okay," she asked, her voice humming into Tau's rapidly rising and falling chest.

"Yeah, just a bad dream." She relaxed into the armrest. She was still tired, and it was early in the morning. Chelsea didn't want to get up either, sighing as she absentmindedly traced a small circle below Tau's shoulder with one finger. Tau closed her eyes again and wrapped her arms around Chelsea, enjoying her friend's warmth. The heat was comforting, and the slight pressure of Chelsea's finger rocked Tau into a dreamless sleep.

The room was flooded with light when she woke up again. Chelsea was gone, and there was a note folded into her hand. '_Went home. Will be at the ring to watch you today. Stay safe. –Ch' _Tau groaned. _Great, now she'll also see me get my ass handed to me in the ring. She's never going to let me out of her sight again. _Nadia was lounging in the living room and reading a book.

"Your—ah—_friend_ left a little while ago." Tau didn't understand why her roommate said that way.

"Okay, thanks." She grabbed an apple and a carrot from the kitchen and sat down on a stool next to her. "What're you reading?"

"It's a book on healing. I start at the hospital tomorrow, and I wanted to brush up on some stuff."

"Okay. When are you starting at that fighting ring?" Tau mentally crossed her fingers, bracing herself.

"Tonight." _Sewer rats. _Tau ate while Nadia continued to skim the book. "I just wish I had something to practice on before being put on the spot. You don't happen to have any scrapes or bruises, would you?" Tau finished eating and let a small flame lick to life in her right hand. "What are you—" she quickly pressed it against her left forearm, feeding the fire for that it wouldn't be smothered. Nadia jumped up from the chair.

"What are you doing? Stop that!" The water bender grabbed Tau's arms and yanked them apart. When the flame died down she pulled Tau's forearm closed to her, examining the fresh burn. "Why would you do that?"

"So you'd have something to practice on."

"I didn't mean for you to go ahead and burn yourself!"

"Eh," Tau shrugged. "Burns don't hurt anymore, anyway. Too used to it." She wiggled her fingers and brought Nadia's attention to the skin on her fingers, red and calloused from bending. "You may well heal it now, though." Nadia sighed and shook her head.

"Fine. But don't do that again. If you do, I won't heal it." She walked into the kitchen and returned with a small orb of floating water. Tau held her arms still while she bended it against the skin. The water was cool and numbed the pain until all that was left of the burn was a faint sear of red.

_She's going to find out today that I'm a ring fighter. May as well get her used to patching me up now. _Tau didn't have any doubts. Even if the Plowman didn't rip off her mask, she would end up with several injuries, injuries she wouldn't be able to pass by as the byproducts of a mugging if Nadia saw the Dragon hobbling around with the same wounds.

_Unless I win at the start; send a lightning bolt right at his chest at the whistle. _Tau shook the thought out of her mind. That could kill someone, and she'd rather be humiliated in the ring than kill someone. _Never again._ Tau stood up and got ready to take another long walk through the city.

"Hey, even though we've only known each other for a few days, you can trust me, you know," Nadia said. "You don't have to hide things from me, and I'm not one to judge other people's lives."

"Um," Tau scrunched her forehead in confusion. "Yeah, I know." _She couldn't know already that I fight in the ring. _

Her walk didn't do anything to alleviate her rowing panic. She ended up at When Lu Park, and she sat down on a bench and watched the people passing by. She brought her feet up and sat with her legs crossed, closing her eyes and clearing her thoughts, turning her attention to the sounds of a group of kids playing, the scent of the late-autumn's frost starting to settle into the air, the taste of sweet smoke drifting her way from a vendor, and the feeling of the breeze pressing through her hair to her scalp. She took all of this, focusing on every aspect of her open senses, before tuning it all down into the background like the din of crickets on her father's farm during the summer.

"Hey!" The shout jarred Tau from her meditation. "Hey, Tau!" Her eyes reluctantly cracked open to see the blonde air bender jogging over to her. His face was flushed as if he has just been running.

"Hi."

"Can I sit down?" he asked. She barely verbalized an affirmative before he let himself fall into the seat next to her. "I went to that street vendor you recommended. The guy's cooking is on point. Much better than anything prepared at the Eastern Air Temple." He noticed how Tau was sitting. She could see the thought crashing into his brain like a train. _Wow, you could read this guy's face like a tickertape. _

"Oh, shoot. I interrupted your meditation, did I? I'm so sorry."

"Don't worry about it. I wasn't really getting anywhere with it, anyway," she lied.

"I didn't know fire benders meditated. I thought you guys relied on your emotions to bend and all that." Though the comment could have been considered offensive, the young man's face was innocent and curious, and Tau was surprised when she didn't get mad.

"Yeah, gotta be the fire to bend the fire," she smiled, repeating a chant her father had used to help her practice bending before she could understand the complexity behind the manipulation of fire when she was younger. "But the only way to really master your emotions is to know how to both dial them up and down, especially if you want to lighting bend. That requires you to clear any emotions out of your head."

"Oh. That's actually a really cool way to look at it. I just assumed you guys need to be angry because all of the few fire benders I know from the Republic tend to be easily annoyed."

"I'm pretty sure that's on you," Tau playfully jabbed, but the half-insult, half-joke seemed to go over Nefron's head. "And sometimes it's just nice to meditate for non-bending reasons."

"Yeah. I guess as an air bender I should probably promote that more."

"Yeah," Tau laughed. She leaned back into the bench, finally not feeling so wound up.

"So…" Nefron searched for something to say. _He really can't just enjoy a quiet moment, can he? _"What should I know about Omashu?" Tau snickered. "What?"

"That's funny."

"Why is that funny?" Nefron became flustered, his cheeks growing pink. Tau guessed his face often turned that color due to his pale skin.

"You just asked a fire bender about life in Omashu."

"I don't get it."

"The people here are still…" Tau waited for the right word to come to mind, "bitter about the Fire Nation occupation during the Hundred Year War. Pair that with the fact that there are never more than a few dozen fire benders and a two or three hundred people with Fire Nation heritage in the city at one time you get a lot of discrimination with no power to do anything about it."

"Oh, that sucks. Why are you here, then?"

"Can't afford to leave. I made the mistake of coming here, and now I'm stuck."

"Oh. That's… rough." _You don't have to respond to everything I say._

"Yeah. We deal with it, though." Tau took a breath and closed her eyes, returning to her meditation.

"You know, you could report that kind of thing to the Greater Omashu government, or make an official plea to the Air Nomads, we do stuff like that, or you could ask the Fire Nation to help you emigrate because—"

"Nefron?"

"Yeah?"

"Close your eyes."

"Okay. Done."

"Now be quiet." It wasn't that Tau didn't like his company; he was just talking too much about stupid things. They meditated on the bench for half an hour, Tau still not coming up with any kind of strategy for the night's fight. She stood up and stretched. Nefron heard her move and uncrossed his legs. "Let's get some food."

"Omashu Star?"

"Yup." They headed toward the street vendor. It was a decent walk from the park, and Nefron asked questions about every different statue, memorial, or significant looking building they passed.

"Who's that?"

"Queb. He led the underground resistance in Omashu during the occupation while King Bumi was captured."

"And what's that one for? Is it… an octopus?"

"The time when Avatar Aang and his group led the trapped citizens of Omashu during the Fire Nation occupation by pretending they all had Pentapox."

"That building, what's it for?"

"Public library and university."

"Oh, and that tower?"

"Old spirit temple."

By the time they reached the Omashu Star vendor, Tau's replies had been whittled down to one or two word responses, yet Nefron's stream of questions and comments had yet to cease it's rapid flow. _I never knew simply being talked to could be this tiring_. They ate, Nefron talking loudly and enthusiastically with the vendor.

Nefron was sad to see Tau leave after she excused herself, and he promised to stop by at the factory to say hello. He also mentioned needing help with something, but he wouldn't tell her what it was out in the open.

For an air bender he wasn't very good at the whole Zen attitude thing. He was a good person, though; Tau could see that. He had expressed several times his disappointment at how the fire benders were being treated and his determination to help fix it. The change needed to come from inside of Omashu, though.

Tau headed toward the ring before Nadia, making up an excuse about meeting up with a bunch of the lightning benders. She mentioned that she might be back late, and made a point of slipping in that there was a small possibility she would sleep over at someone else's house, hoping that maybe Chelsea wouldn't be too mad at her and would allow her to spend the night at her place.

And hopefully having plenty of time to burn a punching back to ash might smooth over her nerves. She hated to even thing it, but she was scared. Scared like the time she got lost in the woods at night when she was six years old. Scared like the first time she accidentally set herself on fire and her father wasn't around to help her put it out. Scared like the time she lost control of her lightning during a thunder storm (she still had the scar on her shoulder). Scared like the night she lost her father.

_Stop it. Be confident. He's never fought a lighting bender before. Just don't be predictable. Don't do anything you've done in the ring before. _Just erupt the ring with lighting, create an electrical storm. _No, stop that. That'll kill him. _So what? He's going to try to unmask you. People already hate fire benders; how do you think they'll take you being a young, female fire bender on top of that. You life as a ring fighter will never be the same. And you know he wont hesitate to pummel you past recognition. _But I can't use my lightning like that. It'll endanger the audience. Think of Kiyi and Fong. And Chelsea will be there_. Then you're going to lose this fight.

Tau kicked a dumpster. She felt one of her toes throb in complaint. She stood still, glaring into the alley as people passed her. She waited. Nothing. She took a deep breath and continued to the stadium.

She changed into her outfit a few blocks away, stashing her excess clothing under a head of scrap metal. She slipped through the partially hidden fighters' entrance. She ignored everyone else as she made her way to the underground gym. When there, she found a former and started stretching, trying to ignore the sounds of roughhousing and bending behind her, and especially trying to ignore the grin on the Plowman's face as he leered at her from across the room.

"Um, hey." Quinn wasn't sure whether or not to try to engage the younger bender in conversation. Even her little fan group had doubts about the Dragon's upcoming bout. "Do you… uh… want any company? Or you would rather, you know, be alone right now." She nervously rubbed her hands together.

"Sit." Quinn followed her order, shocked and finding the fire bender's voice higher and more feminine than she had expected. Tau stretched out her legs and bent her head down toward her knees, her mask brushing the fabric of her pants. Quinn joined her and stretched in silence, doing the same even though she had fought her bout, which she won, much earlier that night.

"Come." The Dragon led the tan earth bender to a sparing strip. Quinn sent the first disk of earth slowly at the fighter, and the Dragon punched it to dust with a fiery fist. The masked fire bender retaliated with a quick, ruthless blast at Quinn's head. The earth bender barely ducked in time to keep her hair from catching on fire. She got the message.

The next disk whipped toward the Dragon as fast as Quinn could hurl it. The Dragon dodged to the side, and the two benders threw volley after volley of earth and flame at each other. The Dragon ended the bending match by bracing herself against the ground and catching a disk shot at her stomach, her feet sliding back a few inches as the force rippled through her arms and back. She dropped it to the ground and walked away, Quinn halting her breakneck pace just in time to stop herself from sending a rock into the back of the fire bender's head.

Quinn limped over to the fireproof mat, grimacing as little as she hobbled through the pain of a few new, fresh burns. The Dragon was already sending impressive blasts of fire into the wall so smooth and concentrated it looked liquid. Quinn noticed that the blue in the fames lasted a little longer than it had before.

Tau bended into the wall, feeding her fire with anger until her nerves dissolved into bits and pieces of directionless face. _I can't lose. Not now. Not to that freak. _Tau looked over at the Plowman. Their eyes locked, and his smile widened. Tau wanted to thrust a fiery hand into his stupid face if only to get rid of that smile. That smile that mocked her. That smile that oozed wicked confidence. That smile that told her he was going to have fun beating her into the ground.

_You know how to prevent that. _Tau shook her head. _I won't cross that line unless he does, first_. She sat down on a bench, facing the wall. _You know he will. May as well do it before he does. One bolt of lighting is all it will take. It will be so easy._

Tau stood up and walked out of the gym, needing to be alone for a while.She found an empty healing room and closed the door behind her. She sat on top of the old cot that served as an impromptu hospital bed.

_If you're going to be a wimp and let him beat you up, you may as well forfeit now._ She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. _No, I can't. I'll never gain any respect that way._ She sat there for several minutes, trying not to think. The door opened.

"Oh, hey, um… do you need anything?" Tau opened her eyes and looked at the healer. _Great_. She didn't say anything, just stood up and walked right past Nadia. The masked fighter walked up to one of the employees hired to inform and escort fighters to their bouts on time. She topped directly in front of him, a little glad when he shifted uncomfortably. He knew she didn't speak, so she waited for an answer to a question that she wasn't going to ask.

"Oh," he realized what she wanted. "Groundhog Greg and Juniper are fighting now, so you're up in," he mentally scanned through the daily list of bouts he was required to have memorized, "bout after next." _Too soon. _Tau waited by the tunnel entering her side of the ring. Thankfully, it was on the other side of the network of underground corridors, so she was alone save one ring employee and the man who was fighting before her.

To her horror, she heard heavy footsteps approaching her slouched position against the rock wall. She didn't look up as two dirty, bare feet intruded her vision of the floor. _His mental game is too good._

"I know who you are." She ignored the Plowman _Bluffing. _"Little girl." _Okay, he can tell you're female. That doesn't take much more than a bit of careful observation. _"Does your roommate know you do this?" _Almost everyone her age couldn't afford to live without a roommate. _"After all, she is going to have to try to patch up your severed limbs after this bout." Tau was careful not to react. _Don't let him see any fear. _

The Plowman carefully watched the honey-orange eyes that glowed in the mask, waiting for the shine of fear to widen the pupils. The Dragon's gaze was dull, uninterested and focused on the specks of dirt on the ground.

"Hey!" the employee called on his way back from escorting the other fighter. "You're not supposed to be here. Report to the other side of—" The Plowman held out a hand a few inches from his face and leaned in toward the Dragon.

"Look. I'll make a deal with you," he growled into her ear. "You go out there, take off your mask, kneel down, and I won't touch you. Otherwise, fire won't be the only red thing spurting from your body." The Dragon didn't move. Didn't flinch. The masked fighter stood set in stone, like a statue forever oblivious to the living world.

"Fine," the Plowman laughed. "More fun for me, then." He walked down the hall, humming to himself.

The crowd roared as the Dragon and the Plowman took their places. Screams for blood echoed off of the high ceiling. _I hope Fong had the foresight to not bring Kiyi to this one. _Tau dug her toes into the earth. _I can end this at the whistle. _Now was her decision time. She took a deep breath and pushed her thoughts aside, preparing herself to bend either lightning or fire. _No, I won't do it. _She quickly shifted her stance to a defensive one. The whistle sounded, and both fighters froze for a second.

"Come on," the Plowman stood up confidently. "Give me what you've got, little lady." The crowd erupted. Jocular phrases were thrown about at this new information. Tau took another breath, ignoring the audience's demands for proof. _Don't' be predictable. Don't do anything you've ever done before, but don't give him control, either. _

She stuck one hand out, lifting her middle finger in a rude gesture. The crowd hooted. _Well, I'd bed he didn't expect that_. The Plowman laughed, and in that moment Tau left back, somersaulting into the moat of water. The Plowman took a step forward, still grinning. Tau let her feet heat up, boiling the water around her.

"Whatcha doing in the pond, girlie? I thought fire benders were scared of the water?" He was just taunting her. His eyes watched her carefully, searching for her plan. Steam. Steam was rising from the moat, slowly encasing the masked fighter. He stomped on the ground and summoned a large boulder, kicking it toward the fighter.

Tau dodged the rock by ducking into the water. She froze, unsure of what to do. _Do the unexpected. _She squirmed under the rock, just barely pulling herself out from under it. Another rock flew at her head, and she rolled to the side. _Get close to him. _She charged. The ground quaked under her feet, and instead of jumping forward, she threw herself to the side. _Thank spirits,_ she thought as she saw the large pit, which was sized to accommodate a forward leap.

She ran forward again, dodging a small flurry of rocks. She could see the grin on the Plowman's face. He drew up a dome around himself as soon as she reached him. She stood in front of the earthen shield. She quickly cleared all the doubts in her head, summoning lightning in her right hand before plunging it into the rock. It crumbled and fell away, revealing a hole where the Plowman had been standing. She watched in horror as the whole covered itself. _This is bad. Bad._

The crowd cheered. The Dragon had no idea where her opponent was. _Bad. Calm down. Breathe. Bad. _She shifted on her feet, trying to send the earth underneath her. She stood still, hoping that if she didn't move, the Plowman wouldn't be able to tell where she was.

A rock shackle rose from the ground, encasing her left foot. The Dragon rushed to summon lighting in her hand again, haphazardly rushing it down to break herself free before her opponent made his follow up move. A pillar of earth shot out form the ground, molding around her right hand as it struck right into the rock. Tau silently cursing herself for using her right hand: her dominant hand. _No. Bad. Too predictable. _Before she could attempt to break free, another pillar caught her left hand, and earth slid over her foot. _Bad. Bad-bad-bad-bad-bad._

She felt the ground shift behind her and heard cheers as the stadium's hero emerged from the ground. His footstep slowly neared her. She knew that even if she turned her head, she shouldn't be able to twist enough to fire bend from her mouth at him. The Plowman chuckled.

"Who says this rat get's a costume change?" Tau felt her sweat turn to steam as the crowd screamed. The Plowman grabbed the elastic that held her mask to her face. He slid if off and lifted the mask above his head in triumph. Tau tried to swallow the shame that was ripping through her chest as she felt the eyes of the crowd on her. The laughs and jeers echoed in her dead, slid around the curves of her ears, and collected to fill every space within a foot from her head.

A band of rock jumped up from the ground and wrapped around her head, effectively cutting off all of her fire bending. A fist slammed into the side of her head, wrenching it to one side. Tau felt the muscles on the side of her neck pull and stretch. The Plowman walked in front of her, smiling, and she struggled against the earth restraining her.

He punched her in the face, breaking her nose in one blow. She coughed as she tried to breathe through her now bleeding, mostly blocked nose. Blood spurted out and splattered to the floor. He ripped off the right sleeve of her shirt. The pillar holding her right arm stretched her limb out to the side and twisted it so the crook of her elbow pointed down. _No._

The Plowman shifted into a heavy stance, preparing himself for the kick. The crowd urged in on, begging for more blood. The Dragon looked up at Little Boulder. The man was sweating nervously from his emcee platform. He had the authority to end a bout early if he deemed that one side had absolutely no chance of winning or was injured past being able to fight. But his job was too keep the fan's happy, and, even after seeing that the Dragon was only a girl, they still cheered on the Plowman.

Tau waited, but Little Boulder didn't even pick up his whistle. She closed her eyes as the Plowman raised his foot. He paused, drawing out both her fear and the crowd's excitement. The foot connected with the side of the Dragon's elbow, and suddenly the world moved in slow motion. The cheers of the crowd slurred, and her elbow bent at an agonizingly slow pace. She felt the first tendons tear, the bone rip from its ligaments, the bone push against her skin from a direction it was never designed to.

The crowd could hear the Dragon's scream through the band of rock constraining her jaw. A few people stopped cheering, seeing the bone poke through the fighter's skin, the blood rushing out of the girl. They were used to the excess injury or embarrassment in the ring, but some of them started to shift uncomfortably in their seats as they realized that unlike the fights were two rivals faced off or one fighter had wronged the other, the now unmasked fire bender did nothing wrong but be born into her heritage.

Tau kept her eyes closed. She could feel the blood dripping down her snapped arm, and she knew that if she saw it, she'd break down. The pain was unbearable. The noises from the crowd grated against her head. She could practically feel the Plowman's grin now as her vision swam with smudges of black of white. She tried to clench her hands, still trapped in the rock, as she desperately fought against the pain that seared up her arm every time she moved. _Push it aside. Clear your thoughts. Pretend you're lightning bending. _

It helped a little. She gathered the panic and the pain and shoved it out of her head. It travelled to other parts of her body, pooling around her now destroyed elbow, but at least now she had enough mental clarity to try to breathe properly. She had inhaled blood several times, and she could taste the warm liquid in her throat. A knee found her stomach, and she gagged against the rock. She focused her eyes on the Plowman

_I'm going to kill you. _She couldn't speak the words. He was standing there, holding her mask. Smiling. _Stick to the plan. _She shook her head as it tried to fall down to the ground. _You mean the plan that got your arm broken and has you pinned at this freak's mercy? _Tau could feel the fury rising up within her body. _Just—just follow the plan. Do the unexpected. _Her thoughts were starting to slur, and the taunting Plowman in front of her alternated between varying levels of fuzziness.

She channeled her anger to her left hand, trying desperately to fire bend out of the rock. _There's no oxygen; I can't bend. _She shook her head to try to stay conscious. _Do it anyway. _She could feel the heat grow in her hand. _I'm going to end up burning myself. _It started to hurt. _So? Do you want your other arm broken? Deal with it. _Her fire had no oxygen, and to get it to the degree of heat she required, it needed to feed off of something.

A foot crashed into her ribs. Breathing suddenly became a lot harder. Tau tried not to think about anything besides the growing heat and searing pain in her hand. _A little more._ She could wiggle her fingers slightly in the molten rock. _More. _She yanked her arm, and it tore from its confinement, flinging red liquid earth at the Plowman's face. He doubled over, clutching at his face. _Get free. _Tau lightning bended from her left hand and quickly freed her other limbs and her mouth. She felt as if an axe was wedged in her elbow as it fell to her side, the weight of her forearm pulling painfully at whatever was still keeping it attached to the rest of her.

She could still feel the Plowman's grin. _Stop smiling. _The lightning next hit the Plowman's legs. He seized under the force of the electricity, his body twitching. _Stop smiling_. The ground dipped up and down in Tau's vision. She wouldn't be able to stand much longer, so she dropped her knees onto the earth bender's chest. _Stop smiling already! _She couldn't make out the details of his face. Everything spilled onto everything else.

She latched her left hand onto the Plowman's throat. _I told you to stop smiling! _She let the lightning fly from her palm, running through her body and into his, some of it ground and some transferring between the two fighters, always travelling harmlessly through the Dragon and into the earth bender. _Stop. Smiling. Already. _ She almost collapsed onto the Plowman. She couldn't lightning bend anymore.

She brought up her left fist and slammed it into his face with as much force as she could muster. She tried to lift her arm again, but her hand was too heavy. She was about to lean forward to bite the grin off of his face when someone pulled her off of him. _No, I need to make him stop smiling! He's still smiling at me!_ Something slid into her left arm, a small prick of pain gone unnoticed under the anguish clinging onto the rest of her body. All the colors in her vision blended together, and she fell into darkness.

Quinn almost didn't watch the bout. She had seen the Plowman in action too many times. Each moment in the ring made him more brutal, more merciless, more obsessed with inflicting pain. She waited anxiously for Little Boulder to blow the whistle after the Dragon's mask was ripped off, and she almost jumped into the ring after the Plowman broke the girl's arm, but she knew she'd just be subjugating herself to a beating. She saw one of the arena employees run off into the tunnels, hopefully to fetch Ganshu and a healer.

She didn't notice she was crying until the fire bender managed to break free form the rock binding her in place. _Thank spirits. _The girl sent a blast of lighting at the Plowman. He fell back, writhing and twitching, and she jumped on top of him. When the fire bender ran out of electricity, the Plowman lay still on the ground. His eyes were open and glazed over, his face contorted from the shocks. He was dead.

The Dragon brought up a fist and punched him. _Wait, no. He's dead already. _She saw the arena employee arrive, a tall healing woman at his side, but he didn't enter the ring, hesitating when he saw that the Dragon wasn't stopping. She needed medical attention immediately, and Quinn knew she wouldn't stop until she couldn't twitch a finger. The Dragon tried to raise her arm again, failing to do so. _Stop it._

Quinn jumped down from the observation deck and into the ring. She ran to the fire bender, wrapping her arms across the girl's chest, carful to go under her right elbow. It wasn't hard to pull her from the Plowman's body, and now that Quinn was close to her, she could hear faint mumbles coming from the fire bender.

The water bender was then at her side, slipping a needle into the Dragon's arm. Her body went limp, and Quinn feared for a second that she was dead as well. The water bender barked an order at her, leading her toward the healing rooms to which she carried the Dragon, who was significantly lighter than she had expected.

She carefully rested the fighter on a cot and watched as the water bender did her healing. She didn't recognize the healer, which was surprising because she usually visited one after each of her bouts to at least have her bruises and scrapes healed. The young woman's face was contorted in pain as she bended the water across the fighter's broken body. _Does she know her?_

"Spirits," the healer mumbled. She stopped bending and carefully grabbed the Dragon's broken arm, lining up the two bones where the joint had been torn. "Hold this." Quinn did what she was told, and the healer bended water around the Dragon's elbow.

The healing took over half an hour, focusing mainly on the Dragon's elbow, nose, and ribs. The healer kept on instructing Quinn, having her hold bones in place, fetch bandages, and prop up the unconscious fire bender when needed. When they were finally done, the water bender sat down on the floor and started crying.

"Whoa, it's okay," Quinn tried to comfort her. The water bender just kept sobbing. "Hey, don't worry. She'll be all right. You did a good job." Apparently, that wasn't what was bothering the young woman. "Do you know her?"

The woman nodded, and Quinn couldn't help but feel a little jealous. She had only just heard the fighter's voice and seen her face this night, and this water bender knew her well enough to be devastated over the bout. Not that Quinn wasn't sad or upset, but she wasn't about to fall to the ground swamped with paralyzing emotion. She lifted the healer and guided her out of the room.

"Come on, give yourself some space." They walked into the lounge, were an arena employee and two earth bending ring fighters were trying to restrain a fire bending woman who was yelling at Ganshu.

"Why didn't anyone interfere? It's a fighting match, not a duel to the death! How could you let something like this happen?" There was smoke coming form the auburn haired woman's mouth.

"I'm upset, too," Ganshu tried to be diplomatic. "I didn't think the Plowman would take it that far, and Little Boulder _will_ be reprimanded for not ending the bout." The fire bender saw the healer and with a wave of fire pushed away the three men holding her.

"Nadia! Is she—? How?" The woman struggled to ask the question, her voice cracking as a fresh stream of tears sprung from her already red eyes.

"She's fine." The healer sounded remarkably good considering she had nearly broken down in the healing room. "We need to bring her to a hospital though. Her elbow needs additional work."

"I need to talk to her first." Everyone turned to look at Ganshu, stunned.

"Are you crazy?" The fire bender almost attacked him again.

"The sedative should be wearing off about now. I have the right to see each and every one of my fighters before sending them to a hospital if they're not in critical condition. It's in their contract."

"She lost a lot of blood, sir. I doubt she'll wake up anytime soon," the water bender said.

"She's tough. She'll be up soon. If by some fluke she's not awake in the next hour, then I'll let you take her to a hospital, but until then she stays here."

The three women sat down in one of the empty healing rooms to wait, the healer and fire bender sitting on the couch while Quinn leaned against the wall. They sat in silence for a few minutes, looking around at each other. The water bender was the first to speak.


	7. Chapter 7

_He's still smiling at me._

Tau jumped up, trying to jerk her arms into an offensive bending stance, franticly looking around for the Plowman. She fell back onto the bed with a gasp, curling in on herself. The lower region of her chest pinched painfully, and she couldn't even feel her right hand under the dull throbbing of her elbow. The painkillers made her head disconnect from her neck and float a foot above her shoulders.

She shuddered; if it was this bad pumped up on meds, she'd be crying if she had the face the raw pain of her injuries. She closed her eyes and hissed through her teeth, trying to put in order the fragmented memoires that slowly rose up in her sluggish mind.

"Can you tell me your name?" Tau didn't know at first from where the voice came. Then she remembered that her head could turn to the side, and she saw Ganshu sitting on a stool by the cot.

"Tau." The name was slurred. Her voice had that weird quality it did when for some reason or another she couldn't breathe through her nose. She closed her mouth and tried to breathe, but only coughed when the air built up a discomforting pressure in a blocked nasal cavity. A jarring memory surfaced behind her eyes: the Plowman driving his fist into her face, making her nose collapse in on itself. She looked at Ganshu, waiting for a follow up question.

"Can you tell me a name that I'd know you by?" _Shit, right. He only knows me as the ring fighter._

"The Dragon."

"Where are you?"

"A healing room. Not sure which one, though." Ganshu chuckled a little, glad that at least now he'd have opportunities like this to enjoy talking to his fighter.

"Why are you here?"

"The Plowman knocked me out, I guess." Ganshu leaned forward

"What do you remember?"

"Um," Tau thought back, though it was hard to focus with her elbow pulsating in agony. She could tell something was still wrong with it. "Everything's really clear until I had my mask ripped off." She noticed that Ganshu was holding the mask in his hands. One horn was snapped in half.

"My arm was broken." Tau tried not to linger on that memory as it fought to send her into a panic. "I managed to bend out of the rock holding me, and…" Tau tried to piece together snippets of still frames in her mind, but every time she tried to focus on a blurred image, all she'd see was the Plowman's smiling face, teasing her, berating her, telling her she was nothing but a blood filled punching bag. Fear joined the pain coursing through her body.

"And what?" Ganshu narrowed his eyes in concern. He saw the Dragon's face pull into a deep frown as she curled deeper into the thin mattress.

"He…" _This doesn't feel right._ The hair on Tau's neck rose suddenly. "He wouldn't stop smiling at me." _He's still watching, leering._

"What do you mean?"

"He wouldn't stop smiling at me. He was laughing at me. They were laughing at me." Tau scooted closer to the wall, instinctually curling the thin sheets with her left arm to tighten them against her body, as if they would protect her like they did when she was a child scared in the middle of the night of unspeakable monsters. "He wouldn't stop smiling."

"Okay." Ganshu chose his words carefully. The Plowman had most certainly not been smiling after the Dragon broke free from her earthen shackles. "What happened next?" Something about the young bender in front of him felt off. They were alone, and the door was closed, but her eyes kept darting past him and scanning to the sides of the room as if she was looking for someone.

"I tried to get him to stop smiling, but he wouldn't." The Dragon looked up into Ganshu's eyes. "He. Wouldn't. Stop." Each word came out with a rushed, shallow breath.

"Okay, it's okay." He didn't dare put a hand out to comfort her. "You seem to not be remembering everything, but that's okay; it happens. Don't worry, though. You made him stop smiling. He won't look at you like that again."

"No, no." Tau shook her head violently, making her nose groan in complain. Or maybe that was her groaning. "Don't lie to me. I remember everything. Until someone pulled me off of him, and I blacked out. I couldn't make him stop." The words were forced out between her teeth, their cadence quivering to match the panic that swelled in her chest. _What if… he's still smiling at you, still planing. You can't beat him. _

Ganshu didn't know what to say. He had dealt with fighters who had muddled memories after particularly traumatizing bouts, but this girl in front of him was not the Dragon he knew. The Dragon was collected and calm. This girl, though, she resembled a loosely tied, worn knot about to unravel into a frayed mess.

"Where is he?"

"What?"

"Where. Is. He." Tau growled at the stadium manager, anger suddenly rising to match her panic.

"He's not here." Ganshu didn't know if he should tell her she had killed him. Usually killing someone in the ring messed with people for a while, and he wasn't sure if it was healthy for him to throw that on her when she was dealing with… whatever this was.

"I told you not to lie to me." Tau curled her left his into a ball, her toes doing likewise. "I know he's watching me."

"No, he's not. I can promise that."

"I can feel it. He's still smiling at me." _Still fucking smiling. _

"No. You killed him. He's not smiling." _Not possible. He's lying again. He's in on it, he's playing in on the Plowman's scheme. _

"Stop lying to me!" Tau slammed the side of her fist onto the cot, making it shake. Ganshu slowly stood up. He slid one foot back on the floor toward the door. Tau inspected his face, about to demand an answer to her question. Then it happened.

The side of his lips curled up. They stretched until they seemed to cut through his cheeks, peeling back over stained teeth into a nasty grin. _No._ It was the same grin the Plowman had. _No. Bad. Bad. Bad. _Tau jumped out of the bed and leapt to the side, away from man mocking her.

"Stop it! Stop!" she screamed. Ganshu took another step toward the door. Tau tried to bend, to force the smile off of his face. She yelped when she accidently tried to yank her right arm out of its sling. The pain jolted like electricity over her body, reminding her of when the limb was first broken.

The door was flung open. Tau recognized Nadia's Water Tribe clothing, but something was wrong with her face: it was all fussy, as if it couldn't make up its mind about what to look like or which expression to latch onto. A few other people rushed into the room. One was obviously Chelsea, another Quinn, and the last two stadium employees, all of their faces dancing in an indistinguishable smudge of blended colors. Nadia stepped forward.

"Tau, it's okay." Tau's eyes flicked in between the different confusing faces and Ganshu's malevolent smile. _Can't they see it? Why are they letting him look at me like that? _The fuzziness cleared on one of the stadium employee's faces, and Tau stumbled back at the sight of the sickening grin.

"Stop. Stop it," she begged, knowing she couldn't much more. She could barely speak her voice was hitching so much.

"Tau, look at me. Everything is okay. You're just having a bad reaction to the painkillers." Nadia quickly opened a drawer and pulled out a small tube of liquid. She swiftly poked a syringe into it, filling it half way with the clear liquid. "Jet let me give you something to help. Let me help you."

"No." The blur of colors and lines on her face were starting to set. "No." Tai tried to step back, but she was already against the wall. "No." A wide sneer came into focus on the water bender's face. _Badbadbad. _Nadia tried to approach her, but she flung out her left hand in a wide arc, sending a line of fire at the woman's feet, making her jump back and forming a barrier between Tau and the other bodies in the room, none of which she suspected she could trust anymore.

The cot lit on fire. Smoke started to fill the room. A stadium employee jumped through the fire, reaching his hands out for her arms, and she thrust a foot into his gut, kicking him away from her while she herself fell to the floor due to the force that jarred through her leg and up to her stomach and chest. The fire started to die down unnaturally fast; someone must have been counterbending it. Another figure pushed itself through the now weakened flames, but it was too fast for Tau to hit.

A tan hand wrapped around her left wrist, plunging it into the rock wall, trapping the fire bender's hand. _No, not again._ A band of rock clamped around her mouth, leaving a network of small, porous holes that allowed her to breathe without hyperventilating. Rock reached up to encase her fight foot, and she managed to jerk her left on up until a knee pressed down into her thigh, forcing it into the floor.

Tau was about to try to bend her way through the rock, but two hands rose up to her face, wiping away at a stream of tears Tau hadn't noticed were there. The fingers travelled up into her hair, brushing urgently through the sweat and blood, fingertips pressing firmly against her scalp, a warm breath from an unseen mouth pooled around her ear.

Tau didn't fight against the body that was pressed against her partly because she hurt too much and partly because she could just tell the fingers that were still almost violently running through her hair didn't intend to harm her. Whispers were gliding across her ear, but she couldn't think well, and the sounds ran into each other, jumbling the syllables.

It was hard to think. She couldn't make sense of anything. Why was everyone smiling at her like that? Why couldn't they just leave her alone? Why did the rock that held her in place seem somewhat… gentle than when the Plowman restrained her? Why did the voice and soft phrases and reassurances in her ear sound so familiar?

She couldn't think through any of it, so she closed her eyes, leaning into the scent of tree bark and fresh buds, and gave up, hoping that maybe if she shut them for long enough, the nightmare would get bored of her and just leave.

There was that twinge of pain again, this time in her abdomen. She knew she only had a few seconds before she passed out again, so she tried to ignore the faces she could feel leering at her from across the room and focused on the sensation of fingers raking through her short hair.

Quinn sat in the hospital waiting room, anxiously tapping her foot on the ground Chelsea was leaning back in her chair, eyes closed and hands folded under her chest. Nadia was pacing back and forth.

They just had time to introduce themselves before hearing the commotion coming from the healing room. After they managed to sedate the Dragon and put out the fire, they brought her to the nearest hospital. She had been whisked behind some random set of doors, and every time one of them asked a nurse what was going on, they either didn't know and didn't care or were too busy with other things to bother finding out.

Chelsea stretched and yawned. Quinn was surprised at how quickly she had managed to fall asleep. They had been waiting for three hour, and Chelsea had slept for two and a half. Quinn could feel exhaustion begin to pull at the skin under her eyes, but her nerves kept her sitting up and foot tapping. The auburn haired fire bender searched around the room for a clock, sighing when she noticed the time.

"Any updates?" she asked.

"No," Nadia grumbled.

"Okay." Chelsea scooted her hips back on the chair and brought her feet up, resting the side of one of her cheeks against a knee. She looked ridiculously calm, like someone on a long train ride, and the way she curled up seemed like something a child would do. Chelsea was the oldest in the group by several years.

"Great, sleeping again," Nadia muttered. Chelsea heard her and yanked her head up to glare at the water bender. Quinn shifted uncomfortably, seeing the tension rise between the two benders. They didn't seem to like each other very much to start with.

"Got a problem with what?" Nadia halted her obsessive pacing.

"Yeah, I do. My friend is seriously injured, and no one's telling us what's going on, and you're just sleeping as if it's no big deal," she spat.

"Tau's fine." Chelsea's feet dropped to the floor and she sat up straight, not breaking from Nadia's glare.

"She was beaten up in a fighting ring, and then she attacked us. You call that fine?"

"You yourself examined her wounds and healed what you could, and you said that physically she'd be fine. Then she had a mental break. It happens sometimes. She'll wake up, be really confused, have a shit time for the next few days recovering and dealing with what's happened, and then she'll be back to normal." Chelsea had seen it. About once every year or two a lightning bender snapped during a shift. The pressure of the bending, economic strain, and some kind of unfixable personal or family trauma had pulled several lightning benders from reality. It was scary, yes, and they were always fired, but a few days with nothing to do but stare at a hospital ceiling always calmed them down.

"Spirits," Nadia breathed. "I can't believe you." Chelsea's eyebrow twitched. Quinn could tell a fight was developing, and even though the fire bender seemed to be restraining herself, Nadia wasn't doing anything on her side. The earth bender shrunk back in her seat a bit, hoping that whatever developed wouldn't drag her into the mess.

"If you're this worried," Chelsea spoke slowly, "you obviously don't' know Tau well enough." Countering Chelsea's low, deliberate speech, Nadia was loud and frantic, the words pushing past her lips and splattering to the floor.

"I know her plenty! She works too hard for this. She comes home from her job and it's all she can do to stay steady on her feet. And then I find out she's also a ring fighter to try to stay afloat on top of her crap job. She's been set up for failure no matter how much she tries. Do you know how unfair that is?"

"I do know how unfair that is." Chelsea stood up. She wasn't as tall as the water bender, but the Northern woman still cringed back a little. She had struck a nerve that ran deeper than the fire bender's desire to keep things civil, and Nadia's eyes widened slightly at her harsh tone.

"I work that same crap job. And when I was Tau's age, I had to prostitute myself to get by. A few weeks ago, some asshole who thinks he's better than anyone with Fire Nation blood raped me just for the laughs, and now I have a child on the way that I'm going to have to support by myself. So I do know how unfair this city is, especially to its fire benders." Chelsea was blowing out smoke with each syllable. "Now, I have to go to work and try to persuade some good-for-nothing manager to hates us not to fire my best friend. So please forgive me for trying to catch a few hours of sleep before a sixteen-hour shift while I'm pregnant."

Chelsea took one last breath, in through her nose, and let the smoke slowly trail out of her nostrils, challenging Nadia to speak, before storming out of the waiting room. The water bender watched her leave before collapsing into the seat next to Quinn, the seat in which the fire bender had been sitting. Nadia rested her elbows on her knees, cradling her face in her hands. Her breaths were deep and shaky. Quinn carefully placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, it'll be okay. This is a particularly rough situation. Don't about it and just waiting it out. Everything will go back to normal in a bit." Nadia just shook her head, her hair flailing about her. Quinn didn't know what to do, so she went back to tapping her foot, striking first with the heel, and then the ball of her foot, rapidly switching back and forth to create a quick, muffled beat. The metal floor was cold against her bare feet. In her rush to get to the hospital, she had forgotten to grab anything from her locker. After another half hour of silence, she shook Nadia's shoulder.

"Hey, watch this." She gestured toward a nurse, one who had been particularly rude to them, who was pushing a cart through the room. Quinn set her feet firmly on the floor and tried to keep her arm movements small and surreptitious.

Nadia watched as the cart jerked to a stop. The nurse tugged at it, but it didn't move. She lifted it and shook it a bit to clear any jam that might be in the wheels, but it still refused to budge when she leaned her weight against it. She muttered and bend down to inspect the wheels. As she did, a small metal box fell off of it, hitting her lightly on the head.

"What the cabbage?" A few people waiting for news glared at her, silently chastising her language. She picked up the box, rubbing the back of her head. She violently pushed against the cart, and it jerked forward without the slightest resistance. She sighed, and started pushing it, but after a few feet it suddenly veered to the left. The cart crashed into the reception desk, and the metal containers and instruments flew a little further than naturally possible. Nadia chuckled.

"Okay, okay. That's enough." Quinn looked over to see the water bender smiling a bit. "I will admit," she said after another suppressed laugh," that was funny. But only because she was mean to us. I didn't know you could metal bend." They'd only just met a few hours ago, and they hadn't really talked much, so Quinn thought it would obvious they wouldn't know much about each other, but she jumped at he opportunity to get the downtrodden water bender thinking about something besides a broken, injured Dragon.

"Yeah. I'm still new at, though, so I don't use it for much. All I can pretty much do right now it push or pull things."

"So, how do you know Tau?"

"I spar with her sometimes before her fights." Quinn left out that any kind of friendship between the two was clearly one sided. She felt like she was cheating, tagging along with the Dragon's real friends. _Well, a girl can dream._ "How about you?"

"We're roommates. I recently moved into town with my brother." _That explains why she's so passionate about how unfair Omashu is._

"Cool." Quinn knew better than to ask why they'd come to city. "Have you registered with the Water Tribe Cultural Association yet?"

"No. I didn't even know there was one."

"I have a family friend who's involved with it. He says it's pretty cool. It doesn't do much besides celebrate a few festivals here and there, but it might be a good place to make some connections. I'll bring him by the ring sometime and introduce you."

"Wow. Thank you. I'd really appreciate that." Nadia looked down at her hands. The friendly air soon turned distant again as two minds shifted back to particular fire bending ring fighter. Quinn glanced over at the water bender, and it struck her how tired she looked.

"Hey, um, you look really worn out. Do you have work tomorrow?"

"Yeah. In a few hours. First day, too."

"You should go home and get some rest. I'll stay here. I'll wait for any news and such." Nadia glanced hesitantly at the clock. "Don't worry, I've got nothing to do today, so I can assure you that I'll still be here when you return."

"Okay. Thank you." Nadia slowly walked to the door, looking back once into the waiting room before leaving. Quinn sighed. She slouched in her seat, jutting her hips forward in an attempt to find some kind of comfort. Her stomach growled, and she realized she didn't have any money on her.

She didn't know why she was there. She barely knew the shorthaired fire bender, but she had jumped into the ring to pull her off of the death Plowman. And she again left forward in the healing room. _I should know better than to surprise a lightning bender. I really could've lost some skin._ But she knew she couldn't go home until she saw that the Dragon was awake and in her right senses. Every conversation she tried to have with the fighter ended in silent gestures, unspoken wishes that she'd leave the fire bender alone, but she couldn't stay away. It was like the Dragon had some special magnet buried deep in her chest that kept on drawing Quinn back to her.

_Maybe I'm going crazy._

Quinn leaned her head against the wall, closing her eyes. She wasn't needed in the shop tomorrow—today, she corrected after looking at the clock. She was rarely needed for anything. No one would miss her if she spent the day at the hospital. It wasn't like they noticed when she disappeared to fight and came back with deep purple bruises. She started to count the tics coming from the clock, everything slowly becoming more and more quiet until she heard nothing at all.

Someone tapped on Quinn's shoulder. The earth bender groaned and shook her head to the side, taking a moment to wake up. Her neck was stiff, and she stretched it, causing several loud cracks and pops to fill the waiting room. The nurse waited not so patiently.

"Excuse me, are you a friend of Tau Hou?"

"Um, yeah." Quinn rubbed her face and looked at the clock. _How long have I been sleeping? _

"She's been moved to a patient room. If you want, you can wait there for her to gin consciousness."

"Oh," Quinn's groggy mind jumped to alertness. "How is she?" The nurse looked through a stack of papers on his clipboard.

"Nothing life threatening." He quickly skimmed through various doctors' notes. "There were a few surgeries on her elbow, a blood transfusion, nose needed to be set, ribs wrapped, and a few different healing sessions for wounds and burns."

"Will she recover?" The nurse shrugged his shoulders, more out of a lack of care to answer than any kind of professional guess. He led her into one of many long hallways. He didn't tell her that the only reason he was bothering with her was because her snoring had been bugging him.

The room was small and white. There was a bed on which Tau was propped up into a sitting position. A chair was pushed against the wall, and as the nurse curtly left, Quinn dragged it to the side of the bed. Various machines beeped and buzzed, and there was a tube that ran into Tau's left arm. Her left hand was wrapped in gauze, and her right arm was cradled in a small metal cast and sling.

Quinn rested her head on top of the unconscious fire bender's shins, glad to finally have a pillow after her uncomfortable nap in the waiting room. As she looked up at the short, dark hair and soft facial features, she remembered why she had interfered in the fight, why she bothered to wait for hours in the hospital.

The Dragon had always intrigued Quinn. The fighter's power and deftness were unique. People didn't learn how to fight like that on the street on in bending classes in Omashu. The very way she walked showed that she of a different fighting culture. When her mask had been ripped off, the first thing Quinn thought about was how unexpectedly handsome the fire bender was. She was on the more masculine side, but Quinn could imagine that face leaning against her shoulder. When she heard her voice for the first time, she knew that the awkward, one-sided conversations had been worth it.

In the healing room, Quinn hadn't jumped forward because she was worried that the Dragon would hurt anyone. She had acted because the panic and despair in those honey drop eyes were too heartbreaking. Having her face so close to those deep, cadmium yellow eyes, her mouth brushing against a small ear, fingers tracing a soft cheek before finding a home in short, black hair, it had all made Quinn feel surprisingly at peace, like she could spend hours feeling that soft hair glide across her fingers or that hot breath against the side of her neck.

Quinn let her eyelids droop once more, one hand sliding on the bed until it reached the side of a thigh, balling into a gentle fist and pressing close to the warmth.


	8. Chapter 8

Tau's brain woke up before her body did. She drifted out of the haze she had been trapped in and felt a weight against her upper thighs. She could feel the tension in the sheets. As each part of her body and surroundings materialized, she was disappointed to find that her left hand and right arm were respectively wrapped and constrained. The air smelled sterile, and her mouth tasted warm and sour, telling Tau that she'd been out for at least several hours.

She cautiously opened her eyes, looking down to see what was on her lap. Two brown eyes were looking up at her. _No, not just brown._ There was a ring of green at the very edge of the irises, putting into the brown in peaks like small mountains. There was even a hint of gold on the horizon between the green summits and brown sky. The curious colors transfixed Tau, and it took her a few seconds to realize it was Quinn to whom those eyes belonged.

The earth bender turned a shade of cherry red Tau didn't know was possible from someone with such tan skin. Quinn tried to quickly jump off of Tau, but her position was unfavorable to her balance, and she back hard onto the fire bender's legs. Tau laughed and rested her bandaged hand on the young woman's forehead, not wanting her to accidentally fall.

Tau took a moment to appreciate the arrangement the earth bender had set up. The cushion that was supposed to lie against the back of her chair was on the seat, raising it so it was level to the hospital bed. Quinn was on her back, head in Tau's lap and behind on the hair while her bent knees rested against the top bar of the chair, her feel dangling over the other end.

"Hi," Tau giggled, removing her hand from Quinn's forehead as the flustered bender carefully slid herself off of Tau.

"Hi. Sorry about that. The seat isn't really comfortable, and slouching over was hurting my back, so I kinda… well… used you as a pillow." Tau couldn't help but chuckle. She usually wasn't one to laugh so easily. _Something the doctors gave me must be making me a little loopy._

"I'm sure I didn't mind."

"Oh, okay." Tau stretched what she could and shook her head a bit to try to clear it. "How are you feeling?"

"Like shit." Tau shifted her different limbs, searching out the places that still hurt. Everything felt fuzzy around the edges due to the painkillers, and she wasn't sure if she was actually wiggling her toes. Her left hand stung a little bit from the burn, and when she breathed there was a pinch in on of her ribs, but everything was minor relative to her elbow. She could feel the dull ache through the meds, and she knew it would only get sharper as the chemicals worked their way out of her system.

She could tell by how her elbow was wrapped that the doctors much had cut into it, and the residual effects of whatever they had used to keep her from waking up in the middle of it all made it hard to move her limbs. Anesthesia always worked itself unusually sluggishly out of her system.

"What happened?" She leaned her head back, trying to figure out what had been real and what had been a crazy, painkiller induced dream. _Okay, sliding on the mail system rails while sprits chased me with laser cannons was definitely not real._

"Well," Quinn was hesitant to retell the events of last night, not sure if anything would trigger a repeat of what happened in the healing room. "Do you remember your fight?"

"Yeah." Tau sighed. "I killed him, didn't I?"

"Yeah. But it wasn't like he didn't deserve it," Quinn quickly added, trying to keep the fire bender from feeling guilty about something for which no one would blame her. "After all, he—"

"He took it too far." Tau would rather leave it at that.

"Yeah." Quinn waited for Tau to mention the incident in the healing room. "Do you remember the…?" She didn't want to talk about it if the fire bender didn't want to.

"The what?" Tau looked at her, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion.

"The, you know… in the healing room." Tau's eyes widened.

"That wasn't real." She stated it as if it was obvious, her voice firm and cold.

"No, it was."

"Stop joking. That couldn't have been real."

"No, I was there." Quinn reached out and took a light hold of Tau's bandaged hand.

"But," Tau grew quiet. _That couldn't have happened. It was a dream, right? _"But everyone's faces…" Quinn could barely hear her. She didn't know what to say, so she didn't speak. The concern in those hazel eyes sadly told Tau that what she had chalked up to be a horrible nightmare had been part of reality.

The same nurse that had showed Quinn the room entered. He saw that Tau was awake and jotted down a note on his clipboard. He checked that there were sufficient fluids in the IV hooked up to his patient and left without so much as an acknowledgement or greeting to the two girls. Tau waited until the door closed behind him to speak.

"How long have I been here?" There were no windows, so she couldn't tell what time of day it was.

"Since last night, and it's starting to get late again." Quinn squeezed Tau's hand. She wanted to wrap her arms around the fire bender to comfort her, but she wasn't sure if the gesture would be considered appropriate or not. The nurse returned with a tray of a sparse collection of food. He set it on the small table adjacent to the bed and next to Quinn. He again left without a word.

"You hungry?" Quinn asked.

"Not really." Tau shifted uncomfortably, the unpleasant feeling of the healing room coming back to her as the memories refused to stop ticking at her consciousness. She felt the panic swell up in her chest and her fingers twitch. The air she breathed was heavy. It was thick as syrup as it stuck in her throat and pooled in her lungs. Quinn saw her struggle to suck in a huge gasp.

"Whoa. Hey, it's okay." She scooted her chair so she was closer to Tau and reached for her face. "You're okay."

Tau's chest felt tight and restricted from the wrappings for her broken rib. Her breath hitched with a single sob. The air she pulled from the sterile room seemed to take forever to slide down her throat, and once it touched her lungs, it weaved through her flesh and escaped from her as if through a leak in an airship.

She didn't know exactly where the tears came from and why. They just appeared, blurring her vision and spilling heat onto her cheeks. She didn't think she was particularly upset or sad. She felt pinned and overwhelmed, like a child lost at a festival, only seeing the fast moving legs and hips of strangers between flashes of bright lights and fireworks, hearing all the different voices and instruments, every one distinctively not their mother or father's, and eventually stopping in the middle of the crown to break down and cry.

Fingers brushed against her cheek before wrapping around the back of her head, pulling her face into a soft, muscled neck. Tau closed her eyes and leaned into the touch, shivering as smooth skin accidentally grazed her ear. Those fingers ghosted upward, gently weaving through slightly sweaty hair. Tau noticed they were the same fingers from the healing room. She buried her nose deeper into the crook of a tan neck, wrapping her free arm around the body in front of her. The fingers pulled gently on her hair. This was gentler than before. In the healing room it had been desperate and impulsive, but this was slow and deliberate.

Tau breathed in the scent of flowers and trees, the air in her lungs becoming less viscous as the sweet smell melted the congestion. The warm water on her face rubbed off onto warmer skin. She relaxed into the arms that cradled her. She remained like that until a loud grumble rumbled and vibrated through her skin. Quinn pulled away, face slightly flushed with embarrassment.

"You're apparently hungry, though." The smile on Tau's face was small. She reached over to the tray of food. She couldn't pick anything up due to the bandage on her hand, so she just nudged the tray closer to Quinn. "I'm not hungry, but you should probably eat."

"No, I couldn't. You need to recover."

"I just had surgery. I wouldn't each much anyway; it wouldn't sit well."

"But you need to eat something. You lost a lot of blood."

"That's what this thing's for," Tau pointed to the IV. They argued a little more before settling on splitting the small offerings of nutrition. Quinn tried to hide it, but Tau could tell she was hungrier then she'd admit. She guessed she hadn't eaten much since the previous night. Tau lifted her hand to her mouth and pulled out a tucked end of white cloth with her teeth.

"What are you doing?" Tau pulled on the end and started unwrapping her hand with a ridiculous combination of arm movements and teeth.

"Getting my hand free."

"What? It's bandaged for a reason!"

"It's fine. I'll wrap it up again later." The skin was red and cracked where it was particularly bad. Tau gently picked up a bag of carrots and tossed it to Quinn to open for her.

Tau ate slowly, offering as much of the food to Quinn as she would take. She was too focused on figuring out how she felt about last night to eat. There was a distinct moment right as her elbow broke that everything started to look at feel different. Everything became surreal, like a dream where all she could do is sit back and watch, unable to actually influence the outcome as her body moved for her. _I guess it's just been a long time since I've undergone that kind of physical trauma. The pressure of the crowd probably didn't help. _She still felt uneasy about what happened, though.

She looked down at her metal cast. She had recovered from worse; once, she had to hobble around on wooden crutches for two months, her father still making sure that her shattered leg didn't get in the way of her work or training.

There was a knock on the door, but the person on the other side didn't wait for an answer before entering. Tau almost grumbled at the sight of Ji Yung's notebook, left hand already holding a pen. Ji Yung asked Quinn to leave, and after receiving a nod from Tau, the earth bender left the two of them to talk. Ji Yung sat in the chair, shifting and crossing her legs until she was comfortable. _This will be painful, but hopefully it'll be over quickly._

"One of your coworkers alerted Hajin that you had been seriously injured. Can you tell me what happened?"

"I don't think that matters. I know he's going to fire me regardless." Her voice was a cold as blue fire looked. _I guess I'm still feeling some of that aggression from last night._ Tau closed her eyes and leaned back into the pillow. She didn't want to think about how she was going to be unemployed, how she was going to have to struggle to pay rent. Her fights were always arranged around her factory schedule, making her a part-time fighter, so she could ask Ganshu for more bouts, but she'd still at leave have to move into a cheaper apartment, maybe outside the city walls. _Maybe I should open my father's letter._

"Your coworker said that you obtained these injuries while ring fighting. Is this true?" Ji Yung had already confirmed the girl's second occupation with the ring manager.

"Yes. You know Hajin's going to fire me, so why do you care?" Tau leaned forward a bit, feeling her frustrations morph into something more malicious. She had been cautious around the woman before, but now she didn't care too much about seeming innocent. There was another way to make sure people stayed off your back.

"I highly suggest you don't try to persecute me for illegal fighting, given that I have a reputation of being quite capable in a fight." Ji Yung met Tau's threat with a stern glare and firm posture. She put her notebook and pen down in her lap.

"I'm here because I have some follow up questions about the attack on Thenroh Injin."

"What about it?"

"Were you aware that he impregnated one of your coworkers?"

"Yes." It wasn't an admission of guilt; Chelsea was Tau's best friend, so it wouldn't be surprising that she knew of her rape. _If they think that makes me guilty, they can go ahead and arrest me. It's like I couldn't break out if I wanted to._

"And you know what?" Tau knew how she looked—truculent, threatening, like her father—but she didn't care. She just wanted this woman to leave her alone so she could move on with more important things. "If it was me, all you'd have left of him would be a pile of ash." Ji Yung kept her eyes firmly on Tau's, refusing to break their gaze. Neither of them backed down, Tau's eyes flaming and wild while Ji Yung's were serious and unperturbed. Eventually, Ji Yung looked down with a sigh and a shake of her head as she wrote something down in her notebook.

"I hope you have a speedy recovery." She stood up and walked out the door. Tau stared as the door shut, stunned. _That's it? She doesn't even tell me whether or not I'm still on the suspect list? _Quinn reentered when she saw Ji Yung leave.

"Hey, you okay?" she asked. She wasn't sure what that was all about, but she knew that the professional woman looked more like the coldhearted bearer of bad news rather than a concerned friend.

"Yeah, I'm good." Tau tugged the sheets off of her legs, growling at the fact that she was in a thin cloth hospital gown. She yanked the IV out of her arm and pushed herself up, bracing her weight on her good elbow and half rolling off the bed. She stumbled a little while trying to establish some kind of balance between her shaking legs and the wobbling floor.

"What are you doing?"

"Going home."

"You can't do that!" Quinn grabbed for Tau's good arm, but the fire bender shrugged her off. "You can stay here; it's not like it costs you anything.

"It costs my time." Quinn latched her hand firmly onto Tau's shoulder. The fire bender turned to her and blew a thick cloud of smoke in her face. Quinn lurched back, coughing and hacking at the noxious fumes. Tau felt bad, but she had things to do, and she couldn't sit on her ass while any economic stability she had slipped through her fingers for good.

She walked down several corridors until she found her way to an exit. Only one nurse bothered to stop her, and she just asked for her name before letting her storm out of the building. She was furious at everything, and she didn't see the person in front of her entering the building until they crashed together. Tau tucked as she fell, managing to turn enough so she'd roughly roll sideways across her back instead of slamming her head onto the ground. She quickly got up, momentarily worried that she'd just flashed someone while the young man she had sent to the floor gathered himself.

"Sorry about that, I wasn't—"

"Tau!" She was wrapped in a bear hug and lifted off the ground. The sudden jerk upward made her dizzy, and she stumbled a bit when her feet finally touched the ground again. She looked up at the messy blonde hair, partially died blue to match the bending master's tattoo.

"I was so worried about you! I went to the factory to talk about that thing I mentioned, and Chelsea told me what happened, and I was so worried that you'd gotten really hurt, and—"

"Hey, I'm all good. No worries." She cut him off before he could continue. _It must be some air bender thing that lets him talk that much without taking a breath. _The air bender looked down at her, seeing the cast and bandages, his eyes widening a little in doubt at her words.

"Shouldn't you be staying in the hospital for a while?"

"Why would I do that?" Tau puffed her shoulders and rolled her eyes. "Come, walk with me." She was eager to get away from the hospital before Quinn could catch up to her and drag her back to one of those horribly uncomfortable beds in those horribly sterile, white rooms. She could walk—somewhat—and she could bend—smoke at least. Sitting around while she could at least do that was a waste of her time. Nefron matched her slightly hobbled gait, offset by the twinge she felt in her ribs that forced her to curl slightly to the side.

They turned a corner, then another, and Tau sighed. She didn't like attacking and them storming out on one of the few non-fire benders who showed some level of care for her, but she had to do it. _I'll apologize and explain myself later, after I find a new job or something. _

"So, what's this super secret, code ten Air Nomad mission you're on, Mr. Tats?"

"Well," Nefron scratched at his neck nervously. "It is secret, at least for now until I get some information, but I wouldn't call it a code ten. More like a code two and a half, aka 'odd job for the lamest air bending master ever so he doesn't blow up another police station and set fire to five blocks of the city."

"Wait," Tau couldn't help but laugh. "You set fire to five city blocks? And exploded a police station?"

"It wasn't my fault. Well, it was my fault, but I didn't think that the damage would be that intense." Tau hissed as another laugh aggravated her rib. Her amusement ultimately won out over her pain.

"Hey, so maybe I am kinda unofficially banned from Republic City until President Raiko and Chief Beifong cool down—both literally and metaphorically—and I've been given a silly, probably impossible task to keep me busy and out of trouble, but I'm still an air bending master who could kick your butt."

"Maybe while I've still got one arm in a cast and the other fried, but I'm pretty sure that once I've healed up I could take you." Tau jabbed her good elbow into Nefron's side with the jest. He grunted, but more in amusement at the friendly challenge than in irritation.

"We'll have to make a bet, then."

"Deal, Tattoo Man. I should be all better in three weeks or so, maybe a bit less." _Gotta admit, even if this city knows how to break pretty much anyone, the free premium health care is a blessing. _"What are we waging?"

"If I win, I want your help with this mission. More than just a 'point me in the right direction' thing; I'm expecting that from you anyway. I want a 'follow me into battle with blasts of lightning and fire and kick ass if needed' thing."

"Sure, no problem. I can do lightning and fire and kicking ass. That's just a typical day for me." The more time she spent with the blonde air bender, the more relaxed and open she became with him. _I guess this is what it's like to have a brother or a guy best friend._ "But _when _I win, you've gotta agree to take me on a sky bison ride and drop me off anywhere I want."

"Deal." _Well, now even if things get really bad, I've at least got a free fide out of here. I'll probably need it._ "So, what's this code two and a half mission you're stuck with?"

They reached When Lu Park and sat down. They were only ten minutes from Tau's apartment now, but she needed to catch her breath, even if it was cold and she was quickly becoming too tired to fire bend herself up to a comfortable temperature.

"Well, ever since that whole thing with the spirit portals at Harmonic Convergence, the spirits have found homes pretty much every except for Omashu. I'm supposed to investigate this phenomenon and find out if it's just that the spirits find the city too overcrowded or smelly or if there's something else going on."

Tau had never considered Omashu's lack of non-human inhabitants. Even in the country she'd occasionally come across a nest of spirit insects or a gabble of phantom animal hybrids. She had always figured that the spirits would have known how unpleasant the city was and had the ability to leave it, unlike their human counterparts.

"You could try asking the Hyrah. He's in charge of the spiritual wellbeing of the city and the spirit festival." She had never seen the Hyrah, nor did she know much about him. He was supposed to be this Zen guy who worked with the government to keep Omashu in balance with the spirits, but considering the lack of said specters, all he ever apparently did was teach the upper class about how to balance their inner self and oversee the traditional festival in the spring that celebrated the spirits of Oma and Shu.

"Cool. Where could I find him?" Nefron followed Tau as she got up and started walking, wanting to get to her apartment before her toes fell off her foot. She shrugged.

"Not sure. I've never met with him. I would guess the Rhenhu Temple in the center district. If he's not there, the monks that are should be able to get you an appointment with him." She considered something for a moment. "In fact, you might want to talk to some of them first; the current Hyrah probably got his position through political connections, so they probably know more, and if there is something unnatural about this, they're less likely to try to cover it up."

"Sounds like a plan. When should we visit them?"

"We?" Nefron faltered a little, his pale face quickly turning red.

"Oh, sorry. I just kinda hoped that you'd, you know, kinda help me out a bit with all the talking and getting places and dealing with people while you can't work." He realized how desperate he sounded. "You know, so you can keep busy while you're healing?" His voice faded, and he looked down at his shoes, tugging a bit at the collar of his gliding suit. Tau just waited. _He's an Air Nomad, and with their scarce numbers, he's going to have to get used to asking for help if he's supposed to do much of anything on his own. Then again, maybe he was sent here by himself so that he wouldn't get much done. _

"Will you help me?" Nefron managed to spit out, still inspecting the scuffs on his shoes.

"Sure." Tau's voice was neutral, and she answered without hesitation. Nefron looked up at her, a goofy smile on his face. "But I have to sort out a few things first."

"Oh. Anything I can help you with?"

"Not really, but if you've got nothing better to do, you can hang around with me. It'll mostly be walking around and seeing what I can do to find a new job and a place to live."

"You got kicked out?" The air bender grabbed her arm—thankfully the left one—and forced her to stop walking. They were only a block away from her current apartment, and her toes were starting to concede to numbness.

"No, but I lost my job because I won't be able to work for a while. Lightning bending is pretty much the best paying job in the city a fire bender can get here, so I'm going to have to find someplace cheaper." _Or just open that letter and find mother's family. They'd have to agree to house you at least until you healed up. Then just kick Nefron's ass, and to the Fire Nation it is. _The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to see if she could find her relatives. She resolved to at least find them and ask them for help.

"I could probably get my old job back in a few weeks, but my wages will be reset to entry level." It was one of Hajin's common tactics. Someone gets injured or sick and can't work, they get fired, and then once their healthy again they're rehired with minimum pay and no bonuses."

"That's rough. It'd only be temporary, but if you need to, you can stay with me while I'm in the city. You know, as a thank you for helping me, and 'cause you've been a really awesome friend. But I'm currently just sleeping with my sky bison in the police stables, so I'm not sure how appealing that sounds."

"I'll see if I can find somewhere somewhat permanent first." _Just in case a miracle happens and I get a lucky break. Or if my mother's family agrees to take me in. And because just upping and going to the Fire Nation with nothing and knowing no one does sound silly. I'd at least want to see if I could track down some distant relatives on my father's side and write to them to see if they could help me._

They entered the apartment building, and Tau headed to June's office. The old woman clearly didn't want Tau to leave, knowing that there weren't many places cheaper than had adequate, safe housing, but she reluctantly accepted that Tau wouldn't be able to afford the place in a few weeks and that she needed to milk the iota of cash she had left. June was nice enough to drop the upcoming rent Tau technically owed her, and she purposefully didn't talk about the cancellation fee she was supposed to charge her tenant. Tau would have two more nights with her blessed couch, and then she'd be on her own.

"Come by in the morning. Early. It might take some time to find the people I'm looking for." She gave Nefron a good bye punch on the shoulder, trying to as casual as possible with her current situation.

Tau thankfully found the apartment empty except for a snoring Pukomo. She showered and got into sweats, grateful to finally be out of the hospital gown. She had gotten some uncomfortable looks from some passersby during her walk with Nefron.

She had to be careful washing herself with her elbow. She didn't unwrap it from its bandages, though the healers would have sealed it well enough. She did unwrap her left hand. The skin was duller than the typical color of seared flesh. She'd been lucky. It would look funny for a few months, and abnormal perhaps for a year or so, but it wouldn't noticeably scar except for how tough the skin would become. _Those healers know what they're doing. _Healing was the only job that lower class citizens and immigrants could get and advance in based solely on merit. Hence, it was usually a given that whatever treatment you got was top quality.

Tau collapsed onto her couch, groaning softly into the pillow. The moan became a grumble when she heard the door to the apartment open. _Great. _She shut her eyes and quickly turned her head into the old fabric, hoping that maybe she'd be ignored until the morning. She had no such luck, though, and her door was thrown open and the light flipped on.

"Oh, thank the sprits." Tau opened her eyes and sat up. _May as well get this over with_. Chelsea and Nadia stood in the doorway. The former rushed forward, wrapping her arms around Tau. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"I was trying to sleep." Chelsea pulled away, her concern dissipating so the anger could set on her face.

"Why the fuck are you not at the hospital." _Oh, boy._

"Because all I'd do there is do nothing while my rent piles up and I lose valuable job hunting time."

"You can't go job hunting with one working arm."

"I can try. And I need to move out. Plus, I promised someone I'd help them with something."

"And where do you think you're moving to?"

"I've got a friend who owes me a favor. I could crash there for a few nights until I find my mother's family."

"Your mother was Earth Kingdom. You wouldn't be here if you thought her family would take you in."

"Can't hurt to try." Tau rubbed her face. The exhaustion was catching up to her, and her pillow looked more and more comfortable with each passing word. Nadia stepped forward now.

"You really should rest, though," the water bender urged. "I understand if you don't like hospitals or whatever, but you shouldn't be doing anything strenuous."

"I'll be fine."

"And you don't need to worry about moving out so quickly. I can help cover your rent for a while."

"You already have on dependent you're taking care of. I can handle myself. And I've already signed the papers." Nadia sighed, taking a deep breath. She walked over to the couch, and Chelsea moved away so the water bender could examine Tau's burnt hand as she sat down.

Nadia inspected the red skin, and she hesitantly looked at the casted arm. Tau took the cast off before she could argue and started unwrapping the by now dirty bandages, curious herself what her scar would look like.

Her elbow was swollen, and Tau was surprised that the stitches that held together a dark purple incision that ran along the side of her elbow hadn't burst. It throbbed dully, but it didn't feel nearly as bad as it looked. Nadia traced her fingers over the inflamed skin, confirming Tau's suspicion that there was a large numb spot splattered on her arm. It started in the crook of her elbow and ran a third of the way down her forearm. She knew she could move all of her fingers properly, though, so it wouldn't interfere with her bending.

Nadia bent a small pool of water from a bottle on her hip and pressed it against the swelling so she could examine the damage done on the inside. After a day of delivering mostly bad news to patients—apparently new employees weren't trusted with any actual healing for a while—she bit her tongue. It could wait.

"How's it look?"

"You'll heal." Nadia quickly rebandaged the elbow, fit the metal cast firmly yet gently into place, stood up, and left without another word. The two fire benders watched in puzzlement as she closed the door behind her. Tau turned to Chelsea and made eye contact. The older woman's face immediately returned to its previous, furious glare. _Shit._

"Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

"No, I—"

"You ran out of a hospital barely an hour after waking up! You were unconscious for twenty hours, and you thought it'd be just dandy to get up and walk out all on your own?" Chelsea stomped over to her, and Tau stood up so the woman wouldn't tower over her. She still had several inches on Tau, though, and she used them to her advantage.

"I wasn't alone. I was with Nefron."

"Great. I feel so much better. You walked home with some random guy you met once because he's supposed to be helping with an investigation that's looking for the perpetrator of a crime you committed. That's comforting." Tau brought her burnt hand up, desperately trying to find some way to defuse the situation.

"Well—"

"Why do you keep doing this to me?" Tau was stunned by the question. The accusation, really. She could see tears starting to cling to Chelsea's eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"This!" Chelsea swung her arms out wide. "Taking up part of my work, attacking Thenroh, ring fighting! Why are you so hell bent on either working yourself into the ground or getting yourself killed?"

"I'm just doing what I needed to!" Tau could feel her own anger flaring into her cheeks. "It's not your job to coddle me and tell me what to do!" Chelsea's eyes wobbled around the different parts of Tau's face. Her characteristic smoke started to puff out as she look long, slow breaths. Her fists were clenched.

Tau had only known Chelsea for a few months, but she had seen the upbeat, optimistic woman almost lose her cool to her anger several times—usually because of something dangerous or risky that Tau did, like the time she slept on top of a run down skyscraper for a week without telling anyone that she was homeless, or the time that she pretended to be Sophie and took her shift after one of her own so the woman could attend her young son's funeral.

As Tau became closer to Chelsea, a few of her coworkers warned her about her curious temper, just in case. She learned once the hard way that there comes a point where if you push the woman too much that if you're not careful or skilled in the tact department, things were bound to get violent. Tau was most certainly not skilled in resolving issues. She had learned from her father that the best way to settle an argument was with fists; usually this ended with her father standing above her as she trembled in pain, but she knew it wouldn't go that far with Chelsea. A little physical exercise would help diminish her rage.

So Tau wasn't surprised when Chelsea's fist came for her face. She was ready, and her own anger was starting to travel into her limbs. She ducked and threw her left fist at the auburn fire bender. It didn't connect, and Tau sidestepped away from the couch so she wouldn't trip.

Neither woman thought much as they fought. Chelsea focused her efforts on Tau's face and left shoulder, painstakingly avoiding the metal cast and broken rib, and Tau relied on her footwork to make up for the loss of one arm. It was all dry: there was no fire. They were both panting by the time someone landed the first hit.

Chelsea moved forward as she dodged one of Tau's left handed punches. The younger fire bender was caught off guard and defenseless, and though she knew that as a fighter she could beat Chelsea with her hands behind her back, she was so tired, and the strenuous effort was making her side and arm hurt. There was no more energy in her limbs after the third punch.

The only thing she could do was brace herself for the punch that sunk deep into her gut. She doubled over into Chelsea with a gasp that resembled a dry heave. Chelsea froze and waited for tau to recover.

When Tau finally wiped the string of spittle hanging from her mouth and stood up straight, she carefully examined Chelsea's face. The rage had dripped out with the light sweat that clung to her forehead, and all that was left was sadness and grief. Her stance was limp, as if she were the defeated one, and Tau let her arm drop from her stomach. The fighting was over.

Chelsea wrapped her arms around Tau and buried her head into her neck. Tau rubbed her back and waited for the sobs to subside. It took a long time, but eventually that also passed, and Chelsea was left clinging to Tau for comfort.

Tau walked them over to the couch, partly because her own legs were burning and threatening to crumple, but also because she could see the same fatigue in her friend. They sat down, and Chelsea vigorously wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay." Tau put a hand on Chelsea's shoulder.

"I shouldn't have done that." Tau wasn't going to justify her violence, but she didn't hold any grudges about it.

"If I couldn't handle it, I would have told you to stop." Chelsea looked down at he lap in despair, her emotions not turning its sharp point inward. Tau grabbed the cloth of her shift and pulled her toward her. The auburn woman sprung from her seat and tackled Tau with a hug, making her fall into the couch underneath her.

Tau was tired, and she shifted down on the couch, rubbing her body against Chelsea's so she could relax into the cushions. Hands pressed against her skin, and Tau noted how different they were form the ones that had comforted her earlier. The more she thought about it, the more she wanted these hands, running along her back as if they were poor fingers touching fine linens for the first and last time, to be replaced by those deep touching, comforting hands, those hands that ran through her hair with a sense of urgency not because of any limited time or opportunity, but simply to soak up more of the feeling.

Chelsea settled into Tau's shoulder, her weight pressing against Tau's chest and hips. Her head rested against the front of her shoulder, her nose steadily warming a patch of cloth on Tau's chest. Tau could smell plasma and faint smoke as she fell asleep, and she found herself wishing that she was bathing in the fain scent of flowers instead.

**Author's Note:**

**Hey guys, just a quick note: I know I pounded out the first several chapters of this really quick, but I'll be busy through AP's, so don't expect the same speed I had with the first chapters. Also, don't worry; the story will shift back more to the action side shortly. Any feedback about what you like/don't like is always appreciated.**


	9. Chapter 9

Tau stared at the sealed envelope. Her name was neatly printed on the front. Her full name. It bothered her. The letter had been sitting on the table in front of her so long she could smell the faint wisps of smoke her father left imprinted on anything he had ever owned. Tau fidgeted with one corner of the paper, creasing a tiny fold back and forth, back and forth.

Nefron sat opposite of her. He had arrived early, as instructed, but Tau didn't feel ready to open up the letter just yet. She didn't know when her father wrote it, how he would address her, and most importantly, under what circumstances he had written it. If it was endearing and caring, if he told her he loved her, then what did that make him? And how would that reflect her actions, what she had done when—_No. Stop_. She shook her head, trying to throw away the thoughts like water droplets in her hair.

"You don't have to open if now if you don't want to." Nefron was watching her carefully, the carefully crafted neutral expression on his face tugged just slightly into concern.

"No, I may as well get it over with." She had mentally buried the letter ever since she had moved to Omashu, but now that it was out of its hiding spot and she saw her father's neat handwriting, she knew it would take a long time to inhume again. She was usually good at ignoring the past, but recently it seemed like it was trying to wriggle as much as it could into her consciousness. _Best to feed the beast so it'll leave me alone. It's not starving anytime soon._

Tau took a deep breath and quickly broke the seal. She held the open envelope in her hand, gazing upon the slightly worn paper nested inside the folds. She twitched a little as she felt a twinge in her finger.

"Shit," she muttered, bringing her index finger up to her lips and sucking off the blood from the cut. _Even in death you're still trying to keep me in line, father._ She carefully lifted the letter out of the envelope and opened it up, reading quickly before she could change her mind. It was to the point, just as she figured it would be.

_Tau,_

_If you're reading this, then I've died before I got the opportunity to finish your training and send you to the Fire Nation. Though you know what I would prefer you do with your life form here on out, I know how stubborn you can be. If you're going to avoid your birthright for as long as your teenage rebelliousness will let you, you may as well have an out for when you come to your senses. _

_If you travel to Republic City, any Fire Nation ambassador would gladly put you on the next high class ship back to the Fire Nation. It's time you accepted your name and what it means._

_I have a feeling, though, that it will be while until you outgrow your childishness, and, as I told you I would, I have enclosed the necessary information about your mother's family. I do not recommend that you go to them for help. You know the story._

_Your mother's name is Xiaogon. Her father's name is Kwei Xiaogon, and I'm assuming he has either refused to let go of his fierce grip on his council position, or he's somehow make sure one of his children has taken over for him. They—of course—live in Omashu's central district. I would not expect any help from him or his family. _

_As much as I fret how you'll live without me, I wish you luck even if you do stray from the path I worked hard to create for you. Remember, you have your set of skills, your intelligence, and your training. Don't waste them._

_Your father,_

_Pegun Hou_

Tau groaned and let her head fall into her arms. She knew her mother's family was wealth and important, but to think that her grandfather had been—or potentially worse, was still—part of the oligarchy running the city. No wonder her mother had needed to run away with her father to marry him.

Her mother. Tau couldn't imagine what she had been like. If her father had any pictures of her, he had kept them to himself. She had never met the woman who gave birth to her, but even when she tried to conjure up the slightest inclination of what she might have looked like, she turned up with blanks.

She also couldn't imagine that anyone could have loved her father enough to run away with him and leave behind the safety of upper class life. _Maybe he was different when he was younger_. Tau didn't want to think about her father before he lost what he loved most, before the woman he risked his life to be with was replaced with a blabbering infant.

"What's it say?" Nefron leaned over the table, trying to catch a glimpse of the neat ink.

"No good news." Tau folded the letter carefully and tucked it bak into the envelope. "Have you met anyone from the upper class here yet?"

"A few." Nefron cocked his head to the side slightly, obviously making the right assumption from that bit of information. "Some of the councilmen greeted me when I arrived."

"Anyone with the last name Xiaogon?"

"No," Nefron's eye's widened a little. _Great_. "But he was mentioned. Someone apologized that he wasn't there because he had some stuff that he needed to take care of as the council leader." _Council leader. _Tau sighed and buried her face in one hand. "Something wrong."

"Yes. No wonder my father never dared to return to the city."

"I'm guessing that's your mother's family."

"Unfortunately. I think it's probably best I take up your offer to share your bison's saddle."

"Oh, come on. Maybe he's nice. You have at least try, for your mother." Tau lifted her head and gave Nefron a stern look.

"She ran away with a fire bender. There isn't much anything that would be more dishonorable for an elite, political Omashu family that than." _Not to mention that if they knew about my father's family… _

"Hey," Nefron reached over and grasped one of her hands in two of his. "If your mother was willing to do that, then she must have loved her father very much. And I'm sure she loved you just as much. You owe it to her to try to reconnect with her family. Time has passed. There's a good chance that they'll look at you as more of your mother's daughter than your father's." Tau doubted Nefron was right. _Especially since my father gave me everything I'd ever need to never be able to hide my heritage. But I do owe her something. _She squashed the guilt in her chest before it could settle into her heart.

"Okay, I may as well try, but it won't go well." Nefron's face lit up at her answer. _He's such an air bender. Even banned from the city, he's trying to make everyone friendly with each other. _"But we're going to temple first."

"Sounds good." Nefron left up from his seat. Tau stood up slowly, stretching her legs. Her right arm was still in the cast, but Nadia had insisted on giving it a thorough healing early in the morning. Tau was a little worried by how vigorously Nadia had worked on her arm, bending the water over the skin long after any dwindling pain had gone numb. She just hoped that Nadia wasn't as excessively meticulous at the hospital.

Her elbow must have been a clean break, which make sense because the strike had been quick and direct, and most of the damage had been done to the tendons and ligaments than the bone. Coaxing bones to mend was one of the slower, harder parts of healing. Flesh was dealt with much more quickly. With the torn tendons reanchored in their proper positions, she guessed that she'd be back to fighting in less than a week.

Tau felt more and more out place as they walked toward the center of the city. As the shops became cleaner and the pedestrians better dressed, she realized how much she and Nefron stood out. Her best clothes were her factory issued shoes and pants and an old white button up shirt that her father had bought her years ago, rolled up to the elbow to cover a small singed hole. She was glad that she was well enough to bend herself warm. Nefron's Nomad flying suit was technically acceptable as more formal clothing as long as there were no rips, but he stood out as much as she did. Though whereas people looked at Nefron with curiosity, they met Tau's Helenium eye's with distain. _If only I inherited more from my mother._

They arrived at the temple while it was still morning. Green pillars stretched high into the sky, and while the gold detailing would normally vault the building into the highlight of any landscape, it fit in with the surrounding lavish establishments. Tau cringed at how much money had been wasted in building the ostentatious edifice. It was nothing more than a decoration.

Nefron whistled. "Master Tenzin would have a heart attack if he saw this thing."

"I'm sure he wouldn't survive a stroll around this district."

"Yeah. It's not what I expected." Tau laughed. _Omashu never is._

"We haven't even seen the inside."

"Oh, spirits."

A guard poised at the mammoth doors moved in their way as they approached. "Halt. State your business." Nefron hesitated a little, either surprised that anyone needed a reason to enter a temple or simply not off put by the guard's aggressive tone.

"We, ah, we're here on Air Nomad business. We'd like to visit the monks." _Could have just said Master Tenzin sent you and it's urgent, be a little more assertive. _The guard looked at his flight suit and master's tattoo.

"The Fire Nation scum stays outside." Tau rolled her eyes. _Great, it's oing to be like this._

"Excuse me?" Tau was tempted to just tell Nefron to go without her.

"Air Nomads have full access to the temple." The guard glared down at Tau, who reluctantly did her best to look small and non-threatening. "But Fire Nation pauper aren't allowed in." Tau wasn't surprised that Nefron was going to argue further with the guard, but she didn't expect him to step forward and pull him down by his metal collar. The skinny bender must have been a lot stronger than he looked, because the guard was easily pulled down several inches.

"Look. I am an air bender master, and she's an official part of his mission. Where I go, she goes, and I'm going into this temple with her." The guard huffed and pulled himself out of Nefron's grip.

"Fine, but it wasn't me who let you in."

Nefron grabbed Tau's left arm and pulled her through the doors. The temple was just as big on the inside, but there were scarcely any signs of life. There were rows upon rows of elegantly carved pews, and various spirit tales were painted with the finest colors on the walls, but the only significant clump of people was a small ensemble crowded around an altar on one side of the room. A few monks were milling about and cleaning. One of them looked up and saw them, his face immediately darkening. The monk closest to him realized that he had stopped wiping down the pew and looked up. That particular monk, whose raiment Tau noticed was a little more modest than the others, hurried over to them.

"What are you doing here?" He hissed under his breath, grabbing the cloth on Nefron's arm and tugging him toward a side room. The room was small and pain, though still expensive looking with an elaborate altar opposite a scattering of embroidered cushions. The monk closed the door behind them quickly. "You can't bring a fire bender in here."

"I can, and I will," Nefron growled. "If you have a problem with that, I suggest you file an official complaint to Master Tenzin, see what he thinks about it."

"No, no," the monk raised his hands in defense. "I don't have a problem with it. They will, though," he jerked his head toward the door. He then took a moment to quickly straighten his ropes, realizing he was in the presence of someone who was supposedly a spiritual master. "I'm Iyashi. You are Master Nefron, I assume?"

"Yes." There was a silence for a few seconds, and Iyashi looked like he was about to speak until Nefron lightly elbowed Tau's side.

"Oh, I'm Tau." She mentally pinched herself, annoyed that she let herself assume that she'd be an invisible part of the conversation.

"Welcome to Rhenhu Temple, Nefron, Tau," the monk quickly bowed, and they dicked their heads in return. "How can I help you?"

"Well," Nefron chewed on his bottom lip as he picked out his words. "We're trying to figure out why there aren't any spirits in Omashu."

"Yes," Iyashi shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "I'm afraid that though I have tried to look into the subject, I don't know why exactly they aren't here, and I doubt any of the other monks bothered with anything related to the spirits in a long time. When the portals were first opened, there was a large influx of spirits. There's a lot of spiritual energy here because of the spirits of Oma and Shu, but ever single one of them left soon after."

"I haven't noticed any significant spiritual energy in the city."

"Yes. It seems to have declined greatly. I'm sorry that I don't know anything about the reasons to that, either."

"Do you think it had anything to do with whatever drove the spirits out?" The monk looked around suspiciously, though there was no one else in the room.

"I can't tell you anything definitive, but it did happen at the around the same time the spirits left."

"Did the Hyra do anything out of ordinary during that time?" Tau spoke before realizing that it would highly offensive for a fire bender to even imply that the Hyra could have done anything out of the righteous. She just had this nagging feeling ever since entering the temple, as if all the glamor was hiding something sinister. She could practically feel blood under her feet.

"No, not that I am aware of. The Hyra's job is to oversee the temples, festivities, and advise on the spiritual health of the city to the council. We see him often enough when he goes into his offices, but there is rarely any communication between him and us monks." Something Iyashi had said earlier had bothered Tau, though.

"What about Oma and Shu? Did they leave as well?" Tau had heard the rumors that the spirits actually lived in Omashu, but she had never decided whether or not to believe them.

"I—" the monk faltered a little. "I asked the Hyra about it once, and he said that they were well, that the spirits just left because they saw how populated the city was." _He doesn't sound convinced._

"Have you seen them?"

"No, it is exclusively the Hyra's job to oversee and care for them." Now Tau was sure that something was horribly wrong. There was a twisting in her gut, though she didn't know where it came from, and she had to resist the urge to walk out of the small room and to go… _to where exactly?_ She didn't know, she just knew that she felt like she was supposed to go to a certain somewhere. She wasn't sure if it was just her being sensitive due to her suspicions, but she thought there was a weird tingling in her injured arm. It was as if a warm, light breeze was running inside her skin.

"Where are the spirits kept?" Nefron asked. He noticed the weird look on Tau's face. He caught on quickly to where her questions were going, though he didn't know why she looked… almost pained.

"Under the temple, in a private sanctuary."

"And where are the Hyra's offices?"

"Same place," Iyashi answered slowly, realizing what they were implying. Nefron was glad that he seemed more suspicious about his supposed spiritual leader than them, though.

"Is there any way that we can talk to him?"

"I guess I could put you in touch with his secretary to set up an appointment." Nefron nodded, and the monk briskly led them across the main room of the temple to another side room, this one bigger and more ornate. A woman sat behind a large desk piled with papers. There was a gold engraved door behind her that Tau assumed led to the Hyra's downstairs offices. She couldn't be sure, but it felt as if the odd sensation in her arm grew slightly.

"Hello, Ms. Yun." The monk bowed. "One of the honorable Air Nomads wishes to the Hyra Gau."

"He's very busy." She didn't even bother to look up from the paper she was skimming through.

"Can we arrange for an appointment?" Nefron asked. The woman sighed and reached for a slim, professional notebook, opening it up and flipping through the pages.

"Best I can give you is two weeks from now."

"It won't take long. I just need ten minutes to ask a few questions. It's urgent business. Master Tenzin himself sent me here to speak to him." _Look who's finally learning about the wondrous world of lying._ The woman wasn't impressed.

"Two weeks. Should I write you down before something else comes up or no?" The woman poised her pen over the paper, finally raising her eyes too look at the air bending master. Her gaze was firm and serious, and Tau took down a mental note to not mess with her.

"Uh, yes please." The pen scratched against the paper. _Wimp._ Tau would have to show Nefron a few tricks later. If Ren ever gave up the minute Hajin's secretary gave him a difficult time, they would only get the see the supervisor three times a year.

"Your appointment is for the fourth at two o'clock sharp. Don't be late." The secretary flipped the notebook closed and returned to the stack of papers on her desk. Iyashi quickly led them out of the temple.

"I do hope that you find answers to your question," the monk said. "The lack of spiritual energy in the city has been disturbing, and very few people have bothered to care about it. If there's anything more I can help you with, don't hesitate to ask me." He looked over at Tau and opened his mouth, but promptly shut it again. He looked unsure about something.

"Thank you, Iyashi. I'll update you after the meeting with the Hyra. Is there anyone else I should talk to?"

"I—" the monk thought for a bit. "Quite frankly, I don't think anyone else cares."

"Thank you anyway." Nefron bowed, and the monk scrambled to return it. He disappeared into the temple, and guard glared at them until they started making their way down the street.

"So, where to now?" Nefron asked. It was still midday, and Tau didn't want to go on the hunt for the Xiaogons yet.

"Food. And seating." Tau's stomach ached for substance, and her pace had slowed considerably as she tired. _Damn injuries_. They had walked several miles in the course of the day already, and hadn't stopped to sit once. Tau wasn't in much pain, but the energy her body was devoting solely to the healing process left her drained.

They had to walk quite a way to find someplace cheap enough for an unemployed fire bender and an Air Nomad—apparently money wasn't much of a thing in the Air Nation, and though Nefron was supposed to rely on generosity and charity to support himself, the council had only given him a small bag of coins that was very rapidly lightened by the cost of housing and feeding an air bison. They are while sitting on the curb, still in one the nicer districts, and watched the satomobiles and carriages pass by.

"Are you sure you shouldn't be resting?" Nefron asked after he finished stuffing the last of his kabob into his mouth.

"Yeah. I've been through worse."

"And was back on your feet after a day?"

"Yup. Well, one foot and two crutches."

"What are you, a super human?"

"I wish," Tau laughed. She pushed back the memories of those wooden crutches. She had nearly set them on fire a dozen times. They finished eating, but Tau didn't want to move, waiting for her body to break down the food into usable energy. Nefron sat with her, but as expected, he could only stay silent for a few minutes.

"Let's play a game," he suggested.

"What kind of game?"

"Well, it's a got-to-know-you kind of game. One person asks a question—nothing to pressing or personal—and the other person answers. You can pass if you don't feel like answering, though."

"Sure. I'll start." _Can't be much harm in that. We get along, it would be nice to know him a little better._

"Okay. Shoot."

"What ethnicity are you?" Nefron had to hold back a chuckle. "What? I can't tell."

"I'm a mutt like you. My mother's family came from the Fire Nation, and my father's from Ba Sing Se. I just got a weird combination of the two. Where were you born and raised?"

"A week's journey on foot from the city outside of a rural town. I grew up on a small farm in the same general area." Tau stretched her shoulders and leaned back a little. "How did you discover you were an air bender?"

"I was a late bloomer. It was two years after Harmonic Convergence. I was out shopping with my little sister, and I sneezed. Five women had to scramble to hold their dresses down, and I sent a man flying into a cabbage stand."

"That sounds like something I could see happening to you," Tau chuckled.

"Yeah. It was pretty embarrassing. And I had to pay for a lot of unsellable cabbages. How'd you find out you were a fire slinger?"

"Huh, fire slinger. Is that a weird term you guys use in Republic City?"

"No, it just sounded cool."

"I don't remember it. My father said that one day I just could just send out little poofs of flames, and that was that."

"Aw, that's no fun."

"Should've asked a different question, then."

"What about your lightning bending?" Nefron flinched when he saw Tau's face darken.

"I'll pass on that. It's my turn to ask, anyway."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry about it." Tau shrugged it off.

"What's the name of your air bison?"

"Yugo. He's a real charmer. I'll take you over to meet him sometime."

"You're going to have to after I cream you in that fight."

"Pfff, yeah right. Only in your dreams." Nefron stood up, and Tau held out her hand. He pulled her up so she wouldn't have to touch the grimy sidewalk with the one hand with which she could do anything.

"Don't underestimate me. You've only been bending for what, two years?"

"Yeah, and I'm already a master."

"Ha, the Air Nation must be getting desperate." Nefron grumbles as they started walking toward the center district again. It took them two hours to find the Xiaogon household, mostly because no one would tell them where it was. Nefron had to pretend that there was some urgent Air Nation development that he needed to inform the head councilman of immediately just to get the address, and then the guards refused to let them near the doors without a scheduled appointment. Tau was starting to doubt how Nefron had become a bending master when he ran out of patience so much.

"It's important! Do you not see these tattoos? I'm not just an Air Nomad, but I'm one of three air bending masters!" Tau grabbed his elbow. He was getting frustrated, and the guards weren't budging. Yelling at them wouldn't help. _Time to show him how it's done._

"Excuse me, sirs," Tau bowed slightly to the pair of guards. She hated having to be extra subservient, but there was no way they were going to let an angry Air Nomad and his Fire Nation sidekick into the head councilman's house. Tau was just glad that Nefron hadn't pulled the 'urgent Air Nation business' card yet.

"We have news about one of the councilman's relatives, and while have only just arrived in town we wish to deliver it as soon as possible. It's," Tau paused, watching as the guards finally showed some kind of interest, "sensitive, so it's important that we deliver it in person. If it isn't too much, would you mind taking a short message to Councilman Xiaogon when he is not busy? We'll wait here for his answer."

The higher ranking guard eyed her warily. She was glad she was small and injured; it would help her look harmless. Unless the guard was wondering how a short Fire Nation girl ended up in a fight. _Look innocent and small. You didn't recently kill anyone, and you've never assaulted a non-bender in an alley. You're insignificant, so look the part. Wide, tired eyes. Neutral expression. Hesitant stance. _

"Fine," the guard grumbled. His partner walked over to their small station and returned with a piece of scrap paper and a pencil. Tau quickly took it from him before he could hand it to Nefron. The air bender watched over her shoulder as she tried to write as neat as possible with her burned hand, trying to emulate her father's meticulous strokes.

_Dear Councilman Xiaogon,_

_I have important news concerning a relative of yours: Arane Xiaogon. If you would so allow it, I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to share what I know of the subject with you in person._

There: it was short, but to the point. Tau just hoped that her mother wasn't such taboo for the family that they would turn her away at the mere mention of her. _Though if they are a political family, they'll want to meet with me if only to convince me not to go to the press. _One of the guards carried the note inside, presumably to give it to a servant for a convenient time. Tau led Nefron to a bench across from the grand house and rested, trying to meditate a little to sooth the nervous clench in her stomach.


End file.
